


What Happens Here, Stays Here

by dovingbird



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Betting, M/M, Oral Sex, References to Hurricane Gus, drunken decisions, vegas shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:18:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7930921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A filled commission. It's only fair that if it's Cole's birthday, the boys do it up big for him in Vegas, whether Miles is super into it or not. The issue happens to be that Miles and his crew run into some unexpected company in the hotel, namely Burnie, Joel, Jack, and Gus, and if that's not weird enough, Gus has still barely spoken to Miles ever since the events of Hurricane Gus and Extra Life 2k15. Awkward? Awkward.</p>
<p>Miles doesn't do awkward.</p>
<p>Some drinking here, a few bets there, and Miles and Gus wake up next to each other in the honeymoon suite with a marriage license nearby. Well, shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens Here, Stays Here

**Author's Note:**

> TW ahead for copious mention of past sexual harassment (a la Hurricane Gus) and a lot of current decisions made under the influence of alcohol.

The only thing it means when Kerry nearly knocks Miles's computer off of his desk when he descends is that it's a pretty normal day, and Miles doesn't even flinch, just reaches to steady his monitor without even looking away from the screen. “Hey, did you buy your plane ticket already?” Kerry asks, already reaching to pick up the Kylo Ren bobblehead that he knocked over.  
  
“Did I buy my plane ticket already?” Miles asks in an exaggerated tone. “Pffffft. Kerry. Kerry, that's-”  
  
“You didn't buy the fucking ticket.”  
  
“Of course I didn't,” Miles replies very softly.  
  
Kerry huffs and hipchecks Miles and his chair to the side, clicking out of his program to pull up a website. “I'm clearing your cookies.”  
  
“Don't you fucking-”  
  
“You'll get a better ticket price, trust me!” Kerry says. He plants a hand on Miles's face and holds him at bay. “Stop, just, hey, no, no tickling, that's not-”  
  
Miles puts up a strong assault that has Kerry nearly in tears by the time he's done, but alas, the cookies are cleared, and Miles is left to sulk. “I don't bookmark anything, dude, you know that, don't-”  
  
“If you'd just bought the fucking ticket when I told you to, this wouldn't be an issue,” Kerry says with that lovely faux patience that he's so good at. He never means it but it's nice to hear anyway. As Miles grumbles and goes to pull up the Delta website, Kerry plants his elbows on the back of the computer chair and watches his progress. “Jon and I bought our tickets like a month ago. Even Cole bought his already. You're slacking. Why in the world are you slacking on going on a trip to Vegas?”  
  
“It's not intentional, dude!” Miles says. “I'm just busy, all right?”  
  
Kerry sniffs. “Sounds like something someone would say if they _weren't_ excited for Vegas.”  
  
“Kerry. My brother. My dude.” Miles reaches out and grabs Kerry gently by the face, his palms against each cheek, and holds him there so he can look into his eyes. “I am more excited about a trip to Vegas with you, the great Kerrian, than I am about anything else in the world.” He holds Kerry's gaze for a few silent seconds before he adds “But seriously, fuck Jon and Cole.”  
  
Kerry bursts out laughing, pulling away from Miles, and Miles grins at the monitor as he types in his information to buy his ticket. “I'm telling them you said that.”  
  
“Please don't,” Miles says. “Jon already sent the MongerCorps after me once, dude, I won't survive a second time.”  
  
“Excellent!” Kerry exclaims. “I'm gonna do it right now!”  
  
Miles has less than a second to buy his ticket before he's peeling out of his chair and charging after Kerry. “Kerry! Kerry, don't you dare! Jon'll beat me up! I don't wanna be publicly shamed by a pretty man beating the shit out of m-” And then Miles barrels straight into someone in the hallway, the air getting knocked out of him, and he grabs them by the biceps, spinning around with them, just barely keeping them both on their feet. “Fuck, I'm so sorry,” Miles says with a winning smile already painted across his face, since that's about the one thing that's kept him from getting fired over the years, but as his eyes focus he realizes he's face-to-face with a pair of glasses and some angry eyebrows.  
  
Gus. Of course.  
  
“Gus!” Miles chirps, his voice cracking as he reaches to smooth Gus's shirt on his shoulders, then lets him go. “Hey, uh, sorry, I was...Kerry is-”  
  
“Whatever,” Gus says flippantly, moving to the side.  
  
Miles spins after him. “Seriously, if you're gonna fire anybody, it should probably be Kerry, right, like...” Miles trails off as Gus continues down the hall, not even looking at him.  
  
Okay, so. It's not...out of the ordinary for Gus to just generally ignore everyone around him and take the shortest path from point A to point B, but Miles stands there for a moment even after Gus has gone around the corner, trying to figure out if. If maybe.  
  
Listen, it's just been weird recently, okay? Not even recently. It's been fucking half a year since things got weird. Not surprising, given what happened.  
  
Extra Life happened, of course. Hurricane Gus. And, much like the effects of a hurricane on a coastline, on a whole fucking country, just those few hours of exposure to Hurricane Gus were enough to shift multiple aspects of office culture.  
  
For one thing, Gus started being careful around the alcohol at office functions. For another, Miles and Gus never interact now unless they're on camera together, and the fact that they could get through even those situations without any awkwardness is a fucking miracle.  
  
See, Miles wouldn't call himself brave. He wouldn't sort himself straight into Gryffindor, as nice as the idea might be. No, he's just a guy who believes that shit has to get done, who believes that his boundaries are flimsy and soft without any clear hard no's attached. And that means that, y'know, when one of his bosses is throwing himself around blackout drunk and half-naked live and on camera, sometimes that means that Miles has to be the champ that takes the fall to keep everybody else feeling good. He'll be the punchline. He doesn't care. He'll take a finger up his ass if it means Gus doesn't set his sights on Barbara or Jon or Caiti.  
  
The only thing that's clear now is that Gus, he maybe, he probably cares about what happened. And Miles hasn't quite figured out why.  
  
Gus cares when things go wrong, that's a fact of life. He has fucking nightmares about shit going wrong on the podcast, like? That means the state of his mind is pretty cloudy with worry. So one would assume that he was just embarrassed or upset about the way that Extra Life went down, yeah? Except that he made a joke of it. He went along with it for weeks until everybody forgot what a spectacle he made, and then he moved on. So why the hell is he still awkward as fuck around Miles?  
  
Is Miles awkward as fuck around Gus? He's never thought about it. If anything, he pushes a little harder to make sure that the whole encounter goes by as seamlessly as possible.  
  
Wait, does that make it even more awkward? Oh, great fucking job, Miles, just awkward everything the fuck up.  
  
“Miles! You talking shit?”  
  
Miles spins around, blinking, and comes face to face with Jon. He's endlessly thankful for the close synapses in his mind, the quick jump of neurotransmitters, the fact that he can claw through the haze of bullshit in his head in milliseconds to grab Jon's sleeves and sink to his knees. “Jon, baby, please, I didn't mean it, whatever Kerry told you was a lie.”  
  
“Uh-huh, listen.” Jon is already grinning as he puts his hands on his hips. “The next time you say 'fuck Jon,' you'd better put up or shut up, all right?”  
  
“Absolutely,” Miles says. “I will. Barebacking and all.”  
  
It's easy to sink into banter, to brush over any worries he has about anything. It's always been easy. Miles would call it a flaw, but he likes to think he doesn't have any.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
You’re pretty much required to be a happy flier if you work with Rooster Teeth, and if you’re not, then you need to drug yourself the fuck up just to get through the ride to cons, to meetings, et cetera. Miles is fortunate enough to be a happy flier. Cole, in fact, is not, even with the promise of Vegas in a couple of hours.  
  
“Can you just move his head over a little for me?” Miles whines.  
  
Jon scoffs. “You wanted the window seat, and now you get to deal with being the pillow.”  
  
“But he’s snoring!”  
  
“You could’ve let me have the window seat.”  
  
“Fine.” Miles turns his head to stare out the window with a frown, feeling the weird gross icky feeling of Cole breathing on his neck while he snores. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s not like Miles hasn’t had grosser things on his skin, on his hand, in his mouth.  
  
Not that that’s relevant right now, of course, or on Miles’s mind at all, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Jon being just a couple of seats away, like, how the hell does someone who can’t smell somehow know to pick out the greatest smelling shampoo on the face of the planet, or know how to wash with it so that it sticks in his hair for literally hours after his shower?  
  
Not relevant. Scratch that entire train of thought, take it back to the station, dock it, leave it behind. Do you dock trains? Or is there another method of putting them up that doesn’t sound like some dick contac- goddammit, Miles, just move on!  
  
Kerry’s across the aisle from Jon, far from where Miles could shoot the shit with him until the plane lands, and Jon is one of those guys who shoves some headphones in his ears and zones out and doesn’t even notice when the plane touches down and Miles is the goddamn idiot who forgot to charge his phone on the way to the airport, so that means he’s shit out of luck and stuck with just his thoughts on the flight. And that’s not exactly a bad thing – Miles thinks he has particularly interesting thoughts, thank you – but it’s just lonely, all right?  
  
He can maybe take a little loneliness when Vegas is just a few hours in his future. Maybe.  
  
He goes quiet, watches how the clouds tickle the wings of the plane. Goes over the itinerary quietly. It’s Cole’s birthday, which pretty much calls for strippers or show girls, whoever comes first, and a fuckton of drinking. They all have way too much money saved up for gambling, from slots to craps to blackjack, and whoever walks out with the biggest loss at the end of the trip is due to get mocked for life. They’re no doubt gonna black out at least one night, but hey, their hotel has a pretty damn good bar, so maybe that’ll be the one they get fucked up at. Hopefully no bar fights, but Jon’s a loose cannon when he gets too many ciders in him, which is always hilarious. That’s some quality entertainment right there, and Miles sort of wants to see it more often. He’d offer to hang out with Jon more if he didn’t keep getting turned down.  
  
It’s nothing personal, he knows that, it’s all a matter of schedule. Jon’s a busy bee with a beautiful dog to walk and a physical fitness regime that he’s committed to in addition to the long hours Rooster Teeth puts them through sometimes. He’d hang out with Kerry, but Kerry is more of a homebody than any of Miles’s other friends and their hangouts are typically pretty short if it’s just the two of them, and there’s only so much anime they can watch together before the couch breaks under them. And Cole? Cole’s a good guy. Miles hangs out with him way too much, really, especially since he has other shit to do, other friends, and...well, Miles doesn’t wanna intrude on that.  
  
How the fuck did he go from thinking about their plans in Vegas to being a big crybaby about the fact that he has a pretty pathetically open schedule?  
  
It’s not even anything to pout about. Miles is the fucking Head Writer of Animation, like? He’s barely even halfway through his 20s? That’s not exactly something to sneeze at. He can totally devote himself to that right now and just focus on friends and shit later.  
  
Cole snores particularly loudly against his neck and Miles turns his head to scowl at him, to try one more time to tip Cole over toward Jon. It fails. Jon gives Miles a look and Miles makes a face at him before he turns his head, lips curling into a smile when he hears Jon breathe a laugh behind him.  
  
Whatever. What-the-fuck-ever. So he’s a big lonely baby. He happen to be a big lonely baby that’s going to Vegas with some fucking awesome people, and if he’s lucky he might even get laid while he’s there, so who gives a shit? Not Miles. That’s for damn sure.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
They basically have to steer a still bleary-eyed Cole through the airport and past baggage claim and into a taxi when they touch down, but hey, this is probably what parenthood is like, right? Miles figures he needs the practice ahead of time, and it might as well be with someone who can legally drink while they’re at it.  
  
“Is it a good idea to get Cole drunk when he’s like this?” Kerry the Killjoy asks in the taxi, probably because Cole insists on trying to sleep again even though they absolutely need him awake and alert to help carry suitcases once they get to their hotel, because Miles sure as hell isn’t carrying Cole’s, not since Cole brought the biggest fucking one.  
  
“C’mon, he’ll be fine!” Miles says, reaching around Cole’s drooping head to shove Kerry’s face. “It’s his birthday weekend. You really think we’re gonna keep him from having a great time?”  
  
Jon clears his throat in the front seat, and Miles can feel his eyes through the mirror.  
  
Miles drops his voice to a stage whisper. “Not even Daddy Jon can chaperone all the time-”  
  
“All right, the next time you call me Daddy,” Jon interrupts, “I’m rigging it so you’re guaranteed to do the redemption challenge on the next On The Spot I drag you onto.”  
  
Miles waggles his eyebrows. “You promise?”  
  
“Oh yes,” Jon says dryly. “With relish.”  
  
Kerry gags. “If it involves relish, can that maybe not be the time I’m on a team with Miles?”  
  
Anyway, so yeah, taking care of Cole, not as hard as suspected. Might’ve been easier if they had a toddler leash, sure, but you work with what you’ve got, and sometimes that means just grabbing hold of a belt and steering someone. It’s probably the least embarrassing thing that people typically see in Vegas anyway.  
  
They loiter at the desk to get their room keys – Miles and Kerry are sharing a room, of course, as are Cole and Jon – and Miles takes over babysitting duty while Kerry and Jon talk with the nice lady behind the desk. Cole sags into Miles’s side, warm and surprisingly affectionate, a bit like a puppy, and Miles furrows his brow even as he smiles and looks at him. “Hanging in there, buddy?”  
  
“I’m literally falling asleep on my feet,” Cole practically slurs.  
  
“Weeeeell,” Miles draws out in a high-pitched voice, “maybe next time we don’t take more than one Benedryl on the plane, hmm?”  
  
“I didn’t itch, did I?” Cole challenges a little nonsensically.  
  
Miles chuckles. “No, buddy, no you didn’t. Shh, just let Miles take care of you right now.”  
  
Cole is quiet for long enough that Miles thinks he maybe did fall asleep on his feet, and then his words slur again. “That sounds like a sex thing.”  
  
“It’s your birthday,” Miles says without hesitating. “It can be anything your heart desires.”  
  
“My birthday’s not ‘til tomorrow.”  
  
“As far as I’m concerned, your birthday’s the whole damn weekend.” Miles shifts his weight when Cole does, making sure he doesn’t overextend and end up taking them both to the floor. Cole’s a lean guy, but he’s fucking tall and has broader shoulders than it looks. “You know what that means?” He hears a distant _”Oh no”_ in front of them that’s probably from Jon.  
  
“What?” Cole asks, turning his head to blink at him with glassy eyes.  
  
Miles grins at him, then yells “Oh baby, a trip-”  
  
“Oh _God!_ ” The voice comes from behind them, and it sounds familiar, but when Miles turns him and Cole around he can’t see who it belongs to right away. “Don’t tell me that’s- IT IS.” And then he sees the person who owns that wheedling voice, Joel Heyman. “You’re checking out, right?” Joel asks as he wanders toward them in his baggy sweatshirt that he looks like he slept in. “Don’t, don’t tell me you’re-”  
  
“Hey!” That voice belongs to Burnie, too cheery, too alert, the same tone he uses in the Monday morning meeting when people are falling asleep and Burnie has to get shit done. It almost sends a practiced chill down Miles’s spine as he tries to figure out how to speak, how to recover from the sheer amount of shock he has at trying to escape work for a weekend and realizing that it has inexplicably followed him like a fucking hungry werewolf. Burnie wanders up behind Joel, grinning. “What’s up, guys? You all staying here too?”  
  
Joel turns and frowns at Burnie, talking in what he probably thinks is a low voice but that Miles can hear every word of. “We have to cancel. We have to change our reservations-”  
  
“What a mystery finally solved!” Miles doesn’t realize he’s talking until the words are already out of his mouth, until he realizes that Burnie is looking at him with a very professional smile and Joel is squinting at him. “Y’know, I always wondered why Joel never comes out of his office, and now I know. Now I know it’s because he’s scared of me.” He pauses. “Or is it Cole?” Miles grabs Cole by the shoulders and moves him forward a step. “That can’t be true. I know you didn’t get enough of him on Sportsball.”  
  
“Hey Joel,” Cole says with a dopey grin.  
  
Joel squints harder, mouth opening as he leans in an inch. “...i-is he on something?”  
  
“Who cares!” Miles exclaims. “We’re not under your jurisdiction here.” He laughs as easily as he can as he pulls Cole back, pats him on the chest, and locks eyes with Burnie. “Right, boss?”  
  
Is it possible for someone to look relieved and more concerned at the same time? Miles is pretty sure he sees Burnie do exactly that. “Just try not to kill somebody. We’ve got deadlines coming up and I know for a fact that you’re nowhere near done with yours.”  
  
Miles salutes Burnie. “Sure thing!”  
  
“Hey there!” There’s another cheerful voice, but this time it’s Jack, still growing in his beard, still as warm as ever, and Miles is grateful to get a little genuine happiness. “Did we pick up some new people that I didn’t know about?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Joel interrupts quickly. “We’re leaving, I, I’m not going in the same casino as them. You, this is why we should, should require people to report where they’re going when they take their time off, you know, because-”  
  
“What the fuck are Burnie and Jack doing here?” Jon is suddenly at Miles’s other elbow. The group keeps expanding, and Miles feels like an overexcited puppy, spinning his head to keep track of everyone at all times.  
  
“What, you’re not surprised about Joel?” Miles asks.  
  
“I mean, I’m pretty sure someone who’s as addicted to gambling as Joel is just has an annual pass here,” Jon says. He’s looking Joel in the eye, lifting an eyebrow, and Joel opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it, storming away toward the check-in counter, nearly knocking Kerry with his arm when they pass each other.  
  
“Now wait, hold on,” Miles murmurs to Jon while Burnie and Jack greet Kerry. “Why the hell is Joel gonna be nice to you and not me?”  
  
“Did that count as nice?” Jon grins at Miles and shrugs. “Anyway, he knows if he’s good then I won’t put him on On The Spot next time I need a fill-in.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Miles says skeptically, his eyes scanning over the lobby and immediately coming to a halt.  
  
There’s a conversation going on in front of him between Burnie and Jon - _”So you have big plans this weekend?” “Not much, just Cole’s birthday and all the babysitting that comes with that.”_ \- but Miles can’t respond to it because he’s unfortunately well aware that none other than Gus is dragging his suitcase inside and already grumbling about something. No, yeah, of course Gus would be here, like, the only thing that would apparently make this Vegas trip a blast to the past for these guys is if Matt and Geoff were here too, it makes total sense and Miles has no idea why he’s surprised.  
  
No, scratch that, he’s mostly surprised because Gus parks himself right next to Miles and kicks his own suitcase. “Piece of shit wheels broke,” he says, and Miles blinks as he tries to figure out if it was addressed to him. “And hey, y’know,” Gus goes on, locking eyes with Burnie, “thanks for leaving some money to tip the cab guy.”  
  
“Don’t be a little bitch,” Burnie immediately fires off, and it’s so casual and so relaxed that Miles feels a little taken aback. “You telling me you didn’t have that in your budget for the weekend?”  
  
“Don’t make fun of my budget.” Gus leans forward and kicks Burnie’s suitcase so it falls over.  
  
“Fuck you!” Burnie says with a laugh as he goes to pick it up.  
  
Gus looks at Miles, actually looks him in the eye for once, and lifts his eyebrows. “So are you guys in town too, or am I hallucinating and we never left Austin?”  
  
Emergency maneuvers kick in somewhere in the back of Miles’s head and he flashes a grin. “Pretty sure I can’t afford a place like this back in Austin.”  
  
“But you can afford it here?” Gus fires right back.  
  
All evidence points to the fact that Gus is holding a casual conversation with Miles right here and no one else. Miles laughs nervously. “I-I have really generous friends.”  
  
Jon drapes an arm over Miles’s shoulders and leans forward, dropping his voice. “I’m sticking him with the restaurant bill tonight, shh.”  
  
“Just so you know,” Kerry interrupts where he’s wrangling Cole from going to one of the lobby benches and falling asleep immediately, “I think it’s only fair that you all buy Cole a drink for his birthday weekend.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Burnie asks with a laugh. “You wanna get the drugged dude drunk? You really think that’s a good idea?”  
  
Kerry waves him off. “Listen, he won’t be drugged tomorrow, probably. Just a couple of drinks. It’ll be fun.”  
  
Burnie and Jack and Gus all look at each other questioningly. Jack speaks first. “No camera zone?”  
  
“No camera zone,” Kerry promises.  
  
“This whole weekend?”  
  
“Totally.”  
  
A little more silent negotiation, and then Gus shrugs and Jack nods, so Burnie looks back at them. “Yeah, sure, why not.”  
  
“Seriously?” Jon asks.  
  
Gus rolls his eyes. “We’re not in charge of you here, whatever, you can all get so drunk you piss your pants for all I care. Just don’t get any on me.”  
  
“No promises,” Miles says, and Gus locks eyes with him with a grin. It’s more acknowledgment than Miles ever gets in the office, and for some reason it makes him feel a little more buoyant. That’s not weird, right? Him being glad that someone who’s technically got a fuckton of power over him just through seniority alone approves of him being here?  
  
They all split off when Joel comes back muttering and handing out room keys and generally ignoring the rest of them, and Joel purposely crams his group of people in a separate elevator, loudly declaring that Cole is starting to drool.  
  
As soon as the doors shut, the guys look at each other. “That was weird, right?” Kerry asks. “Did any of you know they were gonna be here?”  
  
“Not a damn clue,” Miles says. Cole is humming something nonsensical, and Miles reaches to pat him on the head.  
  
“They’re not gonna ruin anything for us this weekend, right? Like, make it awkward to let loose around, or…?” Jon asks.  
  
Miles scoffs. “Have you seen those guys party? Yeah, no, seriously, pretty sure we’re gonna be fine. If anything, we’ll absolutely end up babysitting _them._ ”  
  
Jon rubs his eyes. “Please don’t pick right now to be prophetic.”  
  
“Don’t kinkshame him, Jon,” Kerry replies.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Their first night is pretty tame, all things said. Napping brings Cole out of his stupor, which means gambling, which means Jon wasting a fuckton of money because he’s too busy flirting with the dealers to pay attention to the fact that his cards are shit, which means Cole, who is already pleasantly tipsy, laughs just loudly and obnoxiously enough at Jon that Jon decides it’s time to take Cole away for beddy-bye.  
  
Still, it’s early, and though Miles is a little disappointed that he’s not getting a chance to chill with Jon and Cole, he’s never complained about some one-on-one time with Kerry in a bar.  
  
Conversation is easy between them, like always. It trails to work, as it often does – even being away for a long weekend doesn’t change the fact that they’re both passionate about what they do – and goes from there to the group of girls at the end of the counter and into a debate about if the girls are looking at them or checking out the arguably far more attractive duo of guys right next to them.  
  
“You’re too hard on yourself, man,” Miles says, eyes trailing from the girl with dark skin and vividly sparkling eyes back to Kerry. “You’re twice the man then most of the guys in this bar.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Kerry replies dryly. He rubs at his stomach. “We all know that.” He rolls his eyes. “Not exactly the adonis that most girls are looking for.”  
  
“Bullshit. I guarantee I can wingman you right into a date, if you’re feeling too shy.”  
  
Kerry laughs. “You? Wingman me?” He grins. “What, gonna use that stellar conversation you used with Gus and Burnie tonight?”  
  
“What about them?” Miles asks with a laugh of his own, rubbing the back of his neck, automatically looking down at his drink.  
  
“Do I even need to start?”  
  
“I mean, apparently you do,” Miles fires back.  
  
“Okay, okay.” Kerry holds up his hand and shakes his head. “I mean, like, I know Burnie’s our boss and all, but I swear you were a completely different person in front of him, just scared and rambl-”  
  
“Bullshit. No. I was perfectly normal Miles. Everyone knows that normal Miles is scared and rambling.”  
  
“Only if a camera is involved,” Kerry says patiently. “When it’s just you and a couple of guys, you don’t lose your shit that fast. I saw. You were all staring like you’d seen a ghost, and then you were just off to the races, like, did you even know what you were saying, or?”  
  
“I’m allowed!” Miles squeaks. “I am! C’mon, I’m here to chill and have fun for the weekend and I’m not supposed to get nervous when I see the guy that’s sort of, y’know, in charge of my _job_ in the same hotel as me? If he sees me do something assholey, I’ll never hear the end of it.”  
  
“Assholey,” Kerry replies.  
  
“Yeah, what, you gonna throw the dictionary at me too?”  
  
Kerry rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, so I’ll give you a pass on Burnie. But Gus.”  
  
Miles takes a long drink and swallows down the burn of it, pinning Kerry with his eyes. “Yeah, so?”  
  
“So you’ve been weird with Gus ever since he humped your leg on live camera.”  
  
“Untrue.” Miles points at him. “Gus has been weird around me.”  
  
“You’ve been weird around _each other._ You’re one of the two, dude.” Kerry props his chin on his hand and slurps up the last of his drink even though he’s down to the dregs of the ice. “You’re right, normal Miles has rambling tendencies when he gets freaked out, but that kind of means that if you’re weird about something, you’ll talk your way out of it eventually.”  
  
“I’ve tried-”  
  
“For like three seconds, and then you give up.”  
  
“Because Gus walks away!” Miles throws his hands up. “It’s not me! He’s just not interested in...I dunno, being friends or whatever.” Feels trite as hell to put it that way – Gus is a decade older than him and helped found the fucking company – but what else is Miles supposed to call it?  
  
Kerry leans in an inch and drops his voice. “I don’t know if you forgot, but he kind of put his finger inside your asshole.”  
  
Miles scoffs. “On what corner of the planet does that represent friendship?”  
  
“Have you ever met Geoff and Gavin?”  
  
That’s. Wait. That doesn’t count, that’s...Miles stares into the distance, brooding, and throws the rest of his drink back.  
  
“If Gus is being weird, that means something’s going on there that you haven’t talked about, and it’s awkward as fuck watching the two of you work together like you hate each other when we’re all pretty sure you don’t. You could actually be friends.”  
  
“Gus wasn’t even weird tonight,” Miles argues, grumbling. “He was fine.”  
  
“Exactly.” Kerry spreads his arms. “Which either means it’s fixed or there’s something weird just at the office. So you should talk about it.”  
  
Miles quirks a brow. “Me? Talk about something? Not just talk around it?”  
  
Kerry’s quiet for a few moments, tracing his finger through the condensation on the bartop. “...you can at least try.”  
  
Miles barks a laugh and orders another drink and locks eyes with the cute girl across the bar again. “Just like you could at least try with those girls over there.”  
  
“Okay, first of all, fuck you.”  
  
Miles grins and lets Kerry go off on his rant, satisfied with yet another smooth and flawless subject change. Yeah, that suits him just fine.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Jon and Jack are the ones that text about the plans to meet up, because they’re the ones most like responsible dads in their respective groups, and that means that after a long day of gambling and money exchanges, all eight of them are lingering around a high-top table in a lounge together. They’re not nearly enough room and they’ve already discarded the chairs, but that makes it easier, somehow, being elbow to elbow with one of the men that writes their paychecks, with two others who founded the damn company with him, with the fourth who somehow wiggled into their good graces more than most anyone else has managed.  
  
Miles feels Kerry trying to ease him toward the center, in between Burnie and Gus, and that sure as fuck ain’t happening this early. He throws his drink back and shrugs at Kerry. “Guys, I’m out, need more libations, ‘scuse me.”  
  
“That your word of the day calendar finally going to use?” Jon snarks. “Bought that for you a year ago, asshole!”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.” Miles waves him off as he heads to the bar and tries to pretend that Kerry isn’t bounding after him. “You already have your beer, sir,” he says dryly when Kerry catches up.  
  
“You’re being squirrely,” Kerry accuses.  
  
“Dunno what you’re talking about. Sir!” He waves his glass at the bartender, gets a chin pop for his troubles as the man goes back to preparing the long island iced tea he’s working on.  
  
“You didn’t get that drunk last night,” Kerry says. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”  
  
Miles laughs and shakes his head. “Y’know, Kerry, for the life of me I just can’t figure out why you even care so much. Is there a bet going at the office that I don’t know about with me and Gus? Or are we just your OTP?”  
  
“Oh, totally, until you guys make out my life has no meaning.” Impressive dryness, really, Miles thinks as Kerry crosses his arms over his chest. “Listen, I’m just sick of it being awkward. If I’ve gotta work tight deadlines, I might as well do it without Gus being icy as fuck.”  
  
“Noted,” Miles says just as dryly back. He catches a whiff of familiar aftershave and turns his head. “’Sup?”  
  
“You see that?” Jon asks as he squeezes between Miles and Kerry. There’s not a lot of breathing room, but then again Jon’s never actually cared about personal space before with them.  
  
Miles turns his head, leaning to see better. “Fuck.” He can’t fake the kind of genuine respect on his tone, not when he sees the empty shotglasses strewn around the high top in the low light, the way that Burnie and Gus are coaxing Cole into throwing another back. “What shot number is that?”  
  
“Four? Five?” Jon cocks his head to the side.  
  
“Think they’re trying to prove a point?” Kerry asks.  
  
Miles snorts. “What, that they can still keep up with the young pups?”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
Jon shakes his head with a chuckle. “If they are, maybe not doing such a good job. Jack’s looking pretty red already.”  
  
“Think we oughta take advantage of that?” Miles teases with a grin. “Have some fun?”  
  
Jon holds his eyes and slowly grins back, lifting his eyebrows. “Maybe.”  
  
A glass appears at Miles’s elbow and he takes it, flashing a smile at the bartender before he pushes away. “Let’s do it, then.”  
  
By the time they’ve floated back to the others, Miles takes a pretty quick account of just how drunk they’re starting to look. Joel’s voice has gone up another hundred decibels as he waves another shot around under Cole’s nose, Jack has gone silent from how hard he’s laughing with a face as red as a tomato, and Burnie is leaning to the nearest waitress to try and order more shots. It’s only Gus that looks chill as fuck, just grinning as he watches the chaos.  
  
Doesn’t matter. Even without most of them already approaching terminal velocity, Miles can concoct a delightful plan.  
  
They’re an easygoing company in many ways. They make asses of themselves for content. And though this entire weekend has already been declared a camera-free zone, Miles is pretty sure he can amp up that general RT fervor to make some shenanigans happen. Besides, they’re in Las Vegas. Where better to lay down some bets?  
  
“Trying to kill his liver already?” Miles teases, taking a long drink. “Night is still young, boys.”  
  
Burnie snorts. “’Boys?’ Really?”  
  
“I’ll take boys,” Gus says with a wide smile as he leans against the table.  
  
“Oh, will you?” Burnie asks, leering.  
  
“Maybe you wanna be labeled an old fucker,” Gus fires back, “but some of us are proud we don’t have to rely on Viagra yet.”  
  
“Here we go,” Joel mumbles, voice amplified from the glass that’s hovering in front of his mouth as he speaks. “Ready, set...”  
  
“Some ladies like a little maturity,” Burnie teases. “They like a man who knows what he’s doing.”  
  
“I have never once thought you knew what you were doing,” Gus fires back. “Don’t know why they would think you do either.”  
  
“You wouldn’t know anything about that if you’re taking boys for-”  
  
“We get it,” Joel states, words slurring only slightly, “we’re gay, that’s how we get our expensive cars, sore throats, and everything, _fuck,_ Burnie.”  
  
“Hey!” Miles interrupts a little too cheerfully. “Let’s not get too feisty here, guys.”  
  
“The twinks are feeling neglected,” Burnie mumbles to Jack, who starts laughing again, clutching his stomach.  
  
“You okay?” Miles asks, waving a hand in front of Cole’s face, and Cole focuses on him just a little too slowly. Miles grins at him and gets a dopey smile in return. “Need to lay down?”  
  
“What?” Cole squeaks. “No! Fuck no. Not going back to the room.”  
  
“You’re gonna fall over,” Miles says with a laugh. “Jesus.”  
  
“Am not.”  
  
“C’mere.” He hooks arms with Cole. “At least sit down.”  
  
It takes Cole a moment to realize what Miles is doing. “On...on the table?”  
  
Miles grabs Cole by the skinny hips and lifts him straight onto the high top, and shot glasses go rolling, are fortunately caught by Jon and his quick reflexes. “Twenty bucks,” Miles says, already pulling the cash out of his wallet, “if someone does a body shot off of Cole.”  
  
The reaction is immediate.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“What the fuck?”  
  
“Are you high?”  
  
“Won’t that tickle?” Thanks for that last one there, Cole.  
  
Miles is already laughing as he puts his wallet away. “What, you don’t want an extra twenty bucks to spend in Vegas?” he asks the group at large. Kerry and Jon are already making very deliberate eye contact, but the rest of them stare at Miles, Joel in particular wrinkling his brow like an old man who lost his spectacles. “Hey, we can’t leave Vegas without somebody doing a body shot off of somebody. Might as well get paid for it.”  
  
“That rule does not exist,” Joel protests, looking at the others. “I-I, never once have, no, never-”  
  
“Fuck it,” Burnie says, pushing through Gus and Jack to move forward.  
  
And so the games begin, Miles thinks.  
  
Jack raises his hand to dad up the place. “Hold on, Cole hasn’t even said he’s cool with this.”  
  
Burnie leans toward Cole like he’s about to perform a close eye exam. “You cool with it?”  
  
Cole shrugs. “I mean, sure. Might be kind of sweaty though.”  
  
“Augh!” Joel exclaims. “Burnie, no!”  
  
“You gonna do it?” Burnie asks, turning his head and grinning at Joel.  
  
“Gag reflex!” Joel accuses. “Yours is big! You’re gonna, you’ll throw up everywhere!”  
  
Burnie rolls his eyes and looks back at Cole. “Cole, here, lemme, lift up your shirt a sec.”  
  
Cole obliges.  
  
“Did you shower today?” Burnie prompts.  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Any, uh...” Burnie has to pause to cough for a moment, and Kerry snorts in response. “Like, belly button lint or anything?”  
  
“Nope!”  
  
“Then we’re clear!” Burnie rubs his hands together. “Here, lay back, can we-”  
  
“On it,” Jon says a little too quickly, already returning with supplies, with a fresh shot and a bit of salt on a napkin and a lime. “C’mon, lets...” He gets to work, tugging Cole’s shirt off, leaning him back on the table so his torso is flat, wetting Cole’s collarbone with a quick flick of his finger through condensation, concentrating super hardcore on applying a layer of salt.  
  
“Wh-why are you so quick on the draw about this?” Joel asks.  
  
“Had a little practice,” Jon fires back with a wink. Joel immediately starts fidgeting with his drink.  
  
Miles is but an agent of chaos. He doesn’t know what he expected when he put this into motion besides some laughter and a little embarrassment and blackmail material for the rest of their lives, but he definitely didn’t expect it to move so fast, didn’t expect Burnie to be leaning over Cole from in between his legs even before Jon pours the shot over Cole’s belly, didn’t...didn’t expect for Gus to be watching quite so closely with an incredibly concentrated expression on his face. Miles stares a little too hard at that.  
  
“Ready?” Jack asks.  
  
Cole nods, and Burnie leans down without hesitation. He drags the flat of his tongue along Cole’s side to catch the slow drop that eased down his skin before he slurps the shot off of his belly, no hesitation, no gagging, no joking around. Kerry and Jon start cheering and Jack applauds as Burnie climbs Cole’s lean torso and presses his hands into the table on either side of Cole’s shoulders, leaning to suck the salt off his skin, and Cole’s eyes are riveted on Burnie just as Burnie lifts his head to tug the lime from his lips and suck it dry.  
  
“Jesus,” Joel mumbles, quickly finishing off his drink, and Miles flashes him a smile that Joel doesn’t return. Joel stares very intently at the floor as Miles passes the cash to Burnie, who looks all too smug to receive it.  
  
“Money well earned?” Miles teases.  
  
“Oh yeah,” Burnie replies.  
  
Cole sits up and laughs, raking a hand through his hair and kicking his feet. “You’re damn right, it is. Have you seen this bod?” He flexes a little too pathetically, and Miles remembers a little late to laugh with the rest of them, eyes flicking from Joel to Gus.  
  
Gus is watching Miles now. Oh. Okay, that’s...Miles blinks a few times and, when Gus doesn’t look away first, Miles chickens out like the fool he is.  
  
“I can’t be the one having all the fun,” Burnie says, throwing an arm around Joel’s shoulder and dragging him in close with a smirk. “I’ve got a bet in mind.”  
  
“Let’s hear it!” Kerry says.  
  
“Jon!” Burnie points at him. “You’ve been a goody-two-shoes tonight. That’s no good.” He thumbs at Joel. “Fifty bucks if you dirty dance on Joel for the whole next song.”  
  
“Are, are you fucking kidding me?” Joel snaps in a measured tone, glaring at him.  
  
Burnie pulls out the cash and lifts his eyebrows smugly in response.  
  
Joel scowls. “There’s absolutely no-”  
  
“C’mere, Joel,” Jon teases. He holds out a hand, already wiggling his hips in invitation. “Easy money, I’ll split it with you, c’mon.”  
  
“You’re not serious.”  
  
Jon cocks an eyebrow and does what he probably thinks is a slow, sensual roll of his hips, but all it does is make Miles snort and Jack choke on his water. “I’ll make it worth your while,” Jon says smoothly, the syllables so crisp that it sounds like he hasn’t let a single drop of cider touch his tongue, like his pupils aren’t already dilating. “Just gimme three minutes.”  
  
Kerry perks up. “Three Minutes of Ecsta- hey, where’s Joel going?”  
  
Joel elects to turn on his heel and walk away, already muttering, and Burnie bursts out laughing in response. “Fucking baby.”  
  
“He mad?” Jon asks.  
  
“Nah.” Burnie waves it off. “Probably thinks he’s wasting valuable gambling time.”  
  
Jon considers this. “He ain’t wrong,” he says. “Might as well give him a little valuable company,” he teases as he meanders after Joel, giving them a little salute and a grin over his shoulder.  
  
“Fucking...” Burnie snorts and rolls his eyes. “Be right back,” he tosses over his shoulder to the rest of them, moving after Joel and Jon purposely.  
  
Miles barely remembers finishing his drink, but the next sip he takes tastes like just the dregs of it. Huh. Well, that’s no fun. A glance toward the bar tells him that the bartender looks pretty slammed, like maybe someone called out of their shift and left him to it alone, and Miles huffs, decides he might as well be polite and wait, whatever.  
  
Turns out he doesn’t need to. Gus is the one to slip a shotglass into Miles’s hand, his eyebrows lifted and his mouth spread in a frankly terrifying teeth-baring grin that quite honestly drags a number of interesting memories forward. “If I see your hands empty at any point for the rest of this fucking night,” Gus says, “I’m firing you.”  
  
Miles laughs a little nervously. There’s only a hint of slurring on Gus’s words, but it’s enough to remember the elusive Cheese Master. “Can you do that?” Miles asks. His voice only squeaks once, thank you very much. “Don’t you, uh, have to go through Burnie? Or Matt?”  
  
Gus leans forward and Miles smells the sharpness of the liquor on his breath. “You think I don’t have them by the balls already?”  
  
Miles’s eyebrows skyrocket and he feels an odd burst of energy through his veins, probably a response to the booze in his system and the music in the air. “I-I try not to think about their balls at all, actually.”  
  
“Oh really?” Gus asks in what he probably thinks is a whisper, is more of a bellow. “You think I’m gonna believe that when we all saw you kiss him on the podcast?”  
  
It takes a moment to sink in, but Miles blinks through the haze of the aftershave that he can now vividly identify as Gus’s. “...Burnie?” Miles asks slowly. “That was, Gus, that was just a little cheek smooch, that’s nothing.”  
  
“Don’t believe you,” Gus says. The dangerous grin holds. He reaches out and wraps his hand around Miles’s wrist, his fingers long and slim and powerful, and lifts. “Drink.”  
  
Miles can’t even think of a reason to fight the coaxing. He feels his lips pull into a smile of their own will, nervous about..fuck, about what? Being as alone with Gus as he can be for the first time in almost a year? About potentially fucking it up? Miles doesn’t fuck things up. He pushes past it, feels the smile become looser instead of tight and neat. He can’t help but pair the bite of the shot on his tongue and throat with the warmth of Gus’s guiding hand and the weird but pleasant tingle over his scalp. Miles swallows and lets Gus pluck the empty glass away, heat flowing in his chest, feeling a bit like he’s floating. “Y’know, you’re one to talk, okay, you literally fucked my thigh at Extra Life.”  
  
Gus gives Miles a look as he turns toward him with a new shot. There’s silence that’s just long enough for Miles to realize what he did – he referenced Ground Zero, the event, the incident, and by doing so he made it real. He brought it back to life. And by doing so, the heat in his chest has only spread further, leaving the cells rippling just under his skin. Miles shifts his weight awkwardly and tries to think of how he can talk his way around this again.  
  
Gus stares at him. And then Gus grins.  
  
Miles panics. “So, uh, the, the lighting in this, uh-”  
  
“What does it matter if I fucked your thigh?” Gus asks, leaning a little closer, and Miles sways forward before he catches himself, presses back against the edge of the table, senses filled with Gus’s presence, his voice, his scent. “Why’d you even bring it up?”  
  
“I didn’t!” Miles squeaks. “I mean, I’m not, it wasn’t-”  
  
“See, listen, I own up to what I do,” Gus says. He thumbs at his own chest, thumps his fist on it after a moment. “I fucked your thigh live and on camera. I’m not trying to wiggle out of it, like you and the kissing thing.”  
  
Miles feels sweat drip down the back of his neck, sweat he didn’t even realize was beading, and a shiver follows it, vivid and electric. “You’re trying to use it as a gotcha, though,” Miles reminds him, speaking too quickly, just barely avoiding stumbling over his words. “Like, haha, I kissed Burnie on the face, wow, I-I must really care about his balls or be gay or something, but like, you literally, you actually fingered my ass through a fluffy fox costume, Gus, you can’t just, things just happen for comedy, okay?”  
  
Gus’s eyelids go heavy as he tips his head to the side and drops his voice to a thick slur. “I don’t have anything to hide.”  
  
Miles freezes. He tries to work through that statement, that, that Miles somehow has something to hide, or that Gus even cares about what it is, or that Gus can, can somehow see right through him. He watches how Gus’s eyes drop to Miles’s mouth for a long moment and Miles curls his fingers around the edge of the table behind him, feeling the weird rush through his body trying to carry him...where? Forward? No, that’s... “What does that mean?” Miles nearly whispers.  
  
Gus flicks his tongue over his lips. “Miles _ganbarimasu._ ”  
  
His heart stops beating. “Miles ‘does his best?’” he asks, feeling the words tattooed over every inch of his brain.  
  
Gus grins again, wide and promising. And then he guides Miles’s hand. “Drink, please.”  
  
Okay, so, Gus, Gus is probably talking shit, right? Does he even know what he’s saying? He doesn’t know what he’s saying. There’s no way. But Miles’s head feels thicker somehow, like the synapses are all connecting a little too slowly. Gus’s touch is light, enough that Miles could break free from it, but he doesn’t want to, he thinks. He swallows down the new shot, his eyes staying riveted on Gus’s pleased expression before Gus steals the empty glass and makes his way back toward the bar.  
  
Fuck, Miles needs to stop drinking. He needs to keep his head on straight. He needs to focus on the fact that Gus is getting to that lovely dangerous point – Hurricane Gus – all over again, except this time he isn’t in a safe and controlled environment with a room full of people who all consented to be there and who think it’s fucking hilarious. He’s in an unknown location, and no one around him knows who he is.  
  
Miles’s thoughts slow again, and he reaches blindly for Jack’s abandoned glass of water. He watches Jack and Kerry tease Cole, watches how Cole soaks up the attention, wonders at the...at how it feels vivid and familiar, if...huh. Jon, Joel, and Burnie are nowhere to be found still, and Miles leans up on his tiptoes absently to look toward the door, has to fight to catch himself when he nearly loses his balance.  
  
He’s...fuck, he’s very-  
  
“I want you to keep drinking,” Gus suddenly says, appearing in Miles’s vision, giving him another shot.  
  
Miles wrinkles his brow and stares at the glass. He’s suddenly remembering every single thing he’s done for comedy, for entertainment, all because someone wanted him to, all because he was being looked at and admired and spreading happiness. Hearing Gus’s language - _I want_ \- catches something in Miles’s chest, and he lifts the glass without thinking, just barely elbows past the desire to please before he touches the cup to his lips. “Gus, I’ve, fuck, we’ve both, that’s probably, that’s enough for now.”  
  
Gus shakes his head. “You like things in threes, remember?”  
  
What does that even mean? He squints. “...a triple?”  
  
“Oh baby!” Cole shouts from nearby, pointing at him, and almost topples off the table and straight into Jack. It draws attention to Miles and Gus again, and when Kerry and Jack drift toward them Miles nearly cries in relief, feels so strewn in confusion and mixed signals and his really fucking weird body and impulses that he welcomes the other company.  
  
“You done with your bets?” Jack teases. Bets? Right, they were doing bets, fuck. Miles sinks back into the safety of the idea as Jack goes on. “That was simple stuff before.”  
  
“You got something better?” Gus slurs, looking affronted that Jack would dare question...him? Wait, wasn’t Jack questioning Miles? Fuck, how drunk _is_ Gus?  
  
“I do,” Jack says. “We’re in Vegas. What does that make you think of?”  
  
“Showgirls?” Kerry asks.  
  
“Gambling?” Cole asks.  
  
Jack shakes his head. “Shotgun weddings.”  
  
Miles already doesn’t like where this is going.  
  
“I bet you both a hundred dollars that you won’t go down to a wedding chapel and get married,” Jack says.  
  
Miles looks at Gus in horror. It takes him a second, but Miles remembers to laugh, shaking his head, grinning from ear to ear. “That’s ridiculous, I-I, Jack, that, would that even cover the cost of the license? The ceremony? The divorce?”  
  
“I’ll cover it all,” Jack replies with a smirk, “if you’re not too scared.”  
  
“I’m not scared!” Miles shouts. “It’s just a fucking, it’s a terrible bet, it’s not even, it’s-”  
  
“We’ll do it,” Gus says.  
  
“Ey!” Jack high fives Gus while Miles tries to catch up. “Miles has to agree too, though, otherwise no money.”  
  
It’s just a ridiculous idea. It’s not even funny. It’s going to be under Miles’s name for the rest of his life. It’s so bad. And...there’s probably no way that he’ll be able to avoid pissing Gus off if he turns it down. Miles opens his mouth to deny the bet, already feels satisfied even when he says “Fuck it, I’ll do it.” Feels slightly less satisfied when his mind catches up to his words, then lets his mind discard it just as quickly, thoughts jolting around like a swarm of bees that can never find their hive.  
  
“Fuck yeah,” Gus says, grinning, leaning to cup the back of Miles’s neck and to tip his head back just a tiny bit. “Will you drink?”  
  
Yes. Yes he will. Jack is close by and Kerry is keeping an eye on Cole and Miles doesn’t have to think anymore. He can barrel past the weird feelings and thoughts and just. Enjoy himself. Loosen up. He lets Gus tip the shot down his throat, and Miles almost chokes on it from the new angle but recovers, feels that pleasant tingle all the way down his spine this time.  
  
“Good boy,” Gus says softly, almost a murmur against Miles’s cheek, and something too full and too heavy bursts in Miles’s chest, lets the pressure drain out.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
The first thing Miles is aware of is the decadent quality of the sheets. His hotel room with Kerry, the beds aren’t low quality, but the sheets aren’t exactly known for having a thread count in the thousands or anything, right? But these, they’re fucking nice. He shifts for a moment with his eyes closed, feeling the brush of them over his arms, his legs. Is it just the hangover that makes his skin feel a little more sensitive to them? It has to be. He can’t even remember getting back to his room last night. Good old Kerry.  
  
There’s slow, steady breathing nearby him, and Miles wonders at the power of a hangover to strengthen sounds like Kerry’s breathing from across the room in his own double bed. Fuck. As if the words summoned it, a headache sets in, thrashing between his temples, a match being dragged over the surface of his brain and burning neurons with every slow, torturous pass. God fucking dammit, Gus. This is Gus’s fault, really, doing...he conned Miles into drinks, right? He isn’t making that up.  
  
Miles sucks in a sharp breath and reaches to rub the bridge of his nose, trying to press the tension away. He opens his eyes to squint over at Kerry, to see if he’s in better shape than Miles is, if he can go ahead and get the steady stream of painkillers pouring.  
  
Miles is nose-to-cheek with Gus.  
  
Miles jolts upright, then winces, rubs at his eyes for just a moment before he stares down at Gus. There’s a thin stream of light coming from the curtains, piercing and agonizing, but it drifts over Gus’s face, over the...pink? Sheets?  
  
This isn’t Miles’s bed.  
  
First of all, the bed is big enough for a fucking orgy, stretching across the massive – is this a suite? Miles squints at what he can see of the room: the extensive furniture, the doors leading off to other rooms, the...fruit basket? The minibar? The bottle of champagne jauntily perched on a table?  
  
It’s a horror movie. That’s what it is.  
  
“Gus,” Miles says, reaching to shake his arm. “Gus, wake up.” They...okay, there was a bet, there was...Miles nearly hyperventilates in an instant, looks down, sees that they’re both pantsless, but there’s underwear and shirts intact, it’s, okay, that’s. That’s fine. He doesn’t linger on why he was so frantic to check. “Gus!”  
  
Gus grumbles as he squints up at him, then freezes. He slowly starts to turn his head and look around the room. “The fuck?”  
  
“We’re, uh. We’re.” Miles swallows hard. “Do you remember anything from last night?”  
  
Gus frowns, brow wrinkling. “Not so fucking loud.”  
  
“Sorry,” he whispers.  
  
Gus makes a soft frustrated sound as he rubs his face, then rakes his hand through his hair, ruining it further into a puffy black cotton ball. “Why are we...”  
  
Miles scoots closer and draws Gus’s attention to him. “Last night. We made a bet to do something. Do you remember what it was?”  
  
Gus flicks his eyes over Miles’s face. They’re quiet. And then he and Miles’s eyes swell at the same time. “Oh.”  
  
“Marriage.”  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
They stare for just a moment longer before they both start flailing for their phones. Gus gets his first, starts pounding a number into his phone, and Miles loses his balance, slides off the silky bed in his search. “Jack,” Gus says the second the phone is answered. “Where are you?”  
  
Miles hears the distant vibrating sound of Jack’s voice through the phone. There’s something peeking out from under the bed, looking a little crinkled up. He reaches for it.  
  
“I know you’re at the fucking hotel, jackass,” Gus snaps, “I can hear the game in the background, don’t...well-”  
  
He pulls it out and turns it over. He whispers as he reads it. “’This is to certify that the undersigned Justice-’”  
  
“Well, where am I?”  
  
“’-on this day-’”  
  
“What do you mean, I’m at the hotel?” Gus snaps. “I’m not in my room, am I?”  
  
“’-join in..in wedlock...’”  
  
“You’re fucking lying,” Gus says. He climbs off the bed, stumbles to the window, and makes a seething sound of pain as he parts the shades. “I’m not...”  
  
They’re both silent for a long moment as Miles tips back to lay on the floor.  
  
“...the honeymoon suite?” Gus asks.  
  
“Holy shit,” Miles whispers, hand still on the marriage certificate, crumpling it further as he drags his hand into a fist.  
  
“Stop laughing, you ass! This had better be on your card!”  
  
It happened. It really happened. Miles stares at the ceiling, fighting to think, to remember, to-  
  
“What do you mean you have it all on camera?!”  
  
“No camera zone,” Miles says distantly. Jesus Christ, they need to erase that fucking footage right now, no one can fucking see it, no one can get their hands on it, no one can even risk getting it put on the goddamn Internet, not ever.  
  
“Ass. I’m coming down there, and you’d fucking better have my money from the bet in small goddamn bills.” There’s a thump as Gus throws his phone on the bed, as it bounces, and Miles looks up as Gus moves just as quickly to check on it and make sure it’s intact. “Motherfucker. Miles, we’re-”  
  
“We’re married,” Miles says, holding up the marriage certificate.  
  
Gus takes it and frowns down at it. “...they even spelled my name right, shit.” He sinks down to sit on the bed.  
  
Miles stays on the floor. It’s nice here. His heart is pounding and his head is aching and making jokes doesn’t come easy right now. “Did you at least carry me over the threshold?” Not easy, but that doesn’t mean he’s not gonna fucking try, Christ, have you even met Miles?  
  
“I’m not carrying shit,” Gus says. “My head. Motherfucker.”  
  
“Husbandfucker, actu-”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Yes sir, upshutting right away, sir,” Miles says.  
  
They’re quiet for a long moment before Miles groans, pulls himself up to a seated position with a hand on the sheets. They lock eyes as he does so, hold them. “Your flight leaves today?” Gus asks.  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
Gus checks. “10:30am.”  
  
“Fuck. Yeah, gotta be at the airport in a couple of hours.”  
  
Gus nods. “Mine leaves tonight.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“That motherfucker. I’m gonna get Jack to pay to annul this, don’t you worry.”  
  
“Doesn’t that mean we have to swear we didn’t consummate the marriage?”  
  
Gus levels him with a look. “You think we consummated our marriage, Miles?” he asks dryly.  
  
“Well, I’m just saying-”  
  
“In the middle of a fucking silky bed that you can’t even stay in hungover, much less drunk off your ass?”  
  
“There’s a floor,” Miles says weakly, gesturing to it.  
  
Gus snorts as he stands up and goes looking around the room. “Miles, if I fucked you, I wouldn’t let you keep your clothes on, trust me.”  
  
“Well, that doesn’t-” The thud of his heart suddenly catches up, racing a mile a minute, and Miles jolts his eyes up as heat rushes into his face. “What?”  
  
“Found your pants.”  
  
A pair of pants smacks Miles solidly in the face and nearly knocks him over again. “Oof, hey-”  
  
“Put ‘em on, we gotta go find Jack.”  
  
“I need painkillers first, hubby, please, would you be a dear and-”  
  
“Don’t call me hubby,” Gus says, somehow managing to already put his pants on before Miles can even stand to his feet. He calls over his shoulder as he walks. “On second thought, I’ll text you when I’ve got your money from Jack. I’m not gonna wait around on you.”  
  
“Hey, Gus!”  
  
The door shuts. Miles stares.  
  
Well. It seems like a huge waste of money to get an entire honeymoon suite, apparently, and not do anything with it. And he can spare an hour before he has to pack for the airport. Miles faceplants back on the heart-shaped bed with a long groan.  
  
Married. Okay. He’s married to Gus. That’s fine. Whatever. They’ll get their money for successfully winning the bet, they’ll annul the thing, they’ll...just move on? And pretend it didn’t happen?  
  
Miles can’t remember a single thing after agreeing to the bet last night, but he can certainly remember the oddly soft, peaceful expression on Gus’s face as he slept, possibly the only time he’s not seen him stressed or drunk out of his mind. He didn’t look bad.  
  
Ugh, marriage is getting to him, making him sentimental. Miles rubs his eyes and buries his face in the pillow.  
  
A nap. A nap will work. He can sort through the rest of this shit later.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“No good,” Gus says in his ear.  
  
“What do you mean, no good?” Miles asks. He has the phone balanced on his shoulder as he shoves shit into his suitcase, alone in his hotel room while Kerry and Cole have one last hurrah on the machines in the casino. Jon is still nowhere to be found. “We just go down to the county clerk, get the annulment, and it’s done, right?”  
  
“Miles,” Gus says, sounding extremely impatient, “there’s a whole fucking court process to annul it. It’s not that easy.”  
  
“Well, why didn’t you say that before?” Miles asks.  
  
“Because I didn’t know!”  
  
“Hubby, please, not so loud.”  
  
“Fucking...”  
  
“If you want,” Miles says. He should really close his mouth once and a while when he’s this nervous, this anxious, because it never ends well.  
  
“You couldn’t handle me,” Gus says dryly.  
  
“Well, I don’t-”  
  
“Anyway.” Gus steamrolls over him as elegantly as anything. “Either we go through the whole fucking process over the course of who knows how long to annul it and take it off our record, or we get a divorce, which is much easier. Issue is that it’ll stick around. There’ll always be information out there about it.”  
  
Miles sits down heavily on the bed. “Gus. We’re in the entertainment business. People know our names.”  
  
“Don’t fucking remind me.”  
  
Miles huffs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “The annulment sounds fine.  We’ll just. We’ll start the process after we get home.”  
  
 _“Hey, hey.”_ There’s a voice on the other end of the line, one that Miles can barely make out. _“Who’re you talking to?”_  
  
“You know who I’m talking to,” Gus snaps.  
  
 _“Your hubby?”_  
  
“Shut up!”  
  
Miles squints. “Do I hear Jack?”  
  
“Of course,” Gus replies dryly.  
  
Jack laughs. _“Can’t get enough of each other, huh? Phone sex already?”_  
  
“Miles,” Gus says, “gonna need you to forget the murder you’re about to hear. I can’t have witnesses.”  
  
Miles chuckles as he rubs his eyes. “Noted.”  
  
“Anyway, the annulment-”  
  
 _“Trouble in paradise?”_ Jack interjects joyfully. _“Already?”_  
  
“Oh, he’s just loving this, isn’t he?” Miles asks. His grin aches around the edges.  
  
Gus snorts. “You have no idea.”  
  
 _“Put me on speaker,”_ Jack says. _“I can play marriage counselor, let’s go.”_  
  
“I’m not putting you on speaker.”  
  
 _“Gimme the phon-”_  
  
“Fucker-”  
  
Miles listens to the scuffle on the other side of the line, laughing and shaking his head. Jesus. Who says he doesn’t work with a bunch of teenagers?  
  
The quality of the sound changes abruptly. “Miles? You there, Mr. Miles Sorola?”  
  
“I’m here, Jack,” Miles says. There’s pressure at his temples again and Miles rubs at them, holding the phone a little bit away until it can lessen. “When’re you sending your wedding present?”  
  
“Don’t encourage him!” Gus snaps.  
  
“Oh, I’ve got your wedding present,” Jack says in a low amused tone. “How does five hundred dollars sound?”  
  
Gus speaks immediately even while Miles is still trying to catch up. “It sounds like a crock of shit-”  
  
“Now hold on, babe,” Miles interrupts in a saccharine tone. “Let’s let the man talk.”  
  
“I’m divorcing you immediately,” Gus mutters.  
  
“Ah!” Jack sings out. “Then you won’t get the money!”  
  
“Unfortunate.”  
  
Miles manages to finagle himself so he can zip his bag shut with the phone tucked between his chin and shoulder. “That doesn’t seem fair,” Miles says. “Still waiting on the money for the marriage, by the way.”  
  
“Oh, you’ll get that,” Jack says, his grin audible. “Reconsider the five hundred, though.”  
  
Gus scoffs. “I don’t need it.”  
  
“I do!” Miles flops on the bed again. “You got terms, Jack?”  
  
“He fucks you in the ass first,” Gus drawls.  
  
“Not my type! No offense, Miles.”  
  
“I’m wounded,” Miles replies.  
  
“No, my terms...” Jack pauses for dramatic effect. “...are that you have to make this real. Stay married for a month-”  
  
“Done,” Miles says.  
  
“Are you fucking serious?” Gus asks.  
  
Jack laughs. “Not done. No, you’ve gotta stay married for that month, share a bed, go on a date once a week-”  
  
“What is this, Jack’s Fantasy Fanfic Hour?” Gus asks, exasperated.  
  
“-and move in together, of course. Real stuff here.”  
  
“Hear that, Miles? It’s _my_ turn to fuck you in the ass.”  
  
“Hey, maybe I’ll be the one topping, you ever think of that?” Miles asks.  
  
“Absolutely not,” Gus says with so much certainty that Miles laughs again.  
  
“Here’s the thing, lovebirds,” Jack says. “If either of you get sick of the other, then the bet’s off, and you pay me that five hundred instead.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Gus says firmer.  
  
“Gus!” Miles recognizes that he’s wheedling, maybe even whining, and he doesn’t even care. “Easy money!”  
  
“I’ll kill you within a week.”  
  
“I’ll be quieter than usual! Promise!”  
  
“You’re such a liar.”  
  
“How ‘bout it?” Jack interrupts.  
  
“Please, Gus,” Miles whines again. “Please. Pretty please. With a cherry on top.”  
  
There’s silence that makes Miles sweat, makes him question why he’s so ready to accept this bet and also why Gus is so ready to reject it. And then Gus says “Not a month, two weeks.”  
  
“Done,” Jack says.  
  
Gus nods. “All right.” Miles feels his stomach stir with butterflies. Weird. “I’ll text you my address when my plane lands,” Gus says, looking at Miles sternly. “Don’t be late.”  
  
Miles flashes him a thumbs up. “Sounds good, hubby.”  
  
“Don’t push it,” Gus snaps, and then he hangs up.  
  
Miles takes a moment to stare at his phone, watching the screen shift back to the normal home screen. Did he just do that? For real? Did he just coerce Gus into this bet somehow? Wow. Miles didn’t even know he had that kind of power over Gus. Sweet.  
  
Miles pockets his phone as he stands up, trying to figure out if he needs to take a moment to have regrets. Does he? Maybe even a little? No, he decides, he doesn’t, because this is gonna be easy. No problem. Absolutely nothing to sweat about.  
  
He lets that forced ease carry him downstairs with his and Kerry’s suitcases, and when he ends up meeting Jon in the lobby he nearly pounces on him. “Dude, I have so much to tell you.”  
  
“Already heard,” Jon says, flashing him a grin. “Congrats, dude. Offended that I wasn’t the best man, but-”  
  
“Shut up,” Miles says with a smile and a laugh. “It’s just a joke.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“Practically an elaborate prank.”  
  
Jon lifts his eyebrows. “Why don’t I believe you?”  
  
Miles’s cheeks flush immediately. “Because you’re jealous I didn’t marry you first?”  
  
Jon laughs and bumps their shoulders together as they walk toward the casino together to meet Kerry and Cole. “Yeah, totally, consider me jealous as fuck, babe.”  
  
Miles bumps into him back, turns his head to grin when Jon nearly stumbles off the sidewalk, but then he catches sight of a dark mark on his neck. “Dude, is that a hickey?”  
  
“A what?” Jon asks, eyes wide.  
  
“A hickey. Did you...” Miles leans closer to see and Jon darts away, giving Miles a look as he covers the mark with his hand. “Did you get lucky last night? Hook up with some lady at the slot machines?”  
  
Jon snorts and smooths his hair down over his neck, effectively hiding the hickey from view. “A gentleman never kisses and tells, Luna,” Jon replies much too serenely.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Is it weird that Miles doesn’t tell anyone? Not on the taxi ride, not on the flight, not anything? He doesn’t think so. The likelihood that Gus has told anyone either is slim to none, after all, like, they don’t gain anything from anybody knowing they’re shacking up for a couple of weeks. And that means that when Miles’s phone cheerfully informs him that he’s reached his destination that night, he sits outside Gus’s admittedly impressive home for a few minutes trying to figure out logistics.  
  
Do they take separate cars to work? Do they own up to what’s going on if someone asks why they’re acting weird? Is Jack gonna extend that ‘real marriage’ stuff to work and make them hold hands everywhere or something?  
  
He sits in the car too long, thinking too hard. Gus can probably see him from the house. Gus is probably laughing at him right now. Well, that’s fine. Miles is laughing at himself too. Silently. On the inside.  
  
“Fuck it,” Miles mutters as he climbs out of his car. He gets to the front door with his bag, knocks, waits, and the door opens just a second before he’s ready. He puts on a big smile, takes a big breath-  
  
“You eat already?” Gus asks.  
  
Miles lets out some of the air he’s holding, trying to get on Gus’s train of thought instead of being left at the station. “I mean, yeah, but if you’re offering-”  
  
“I’m not,” Gus says, turning to head inside. Miles tries to figure out if it’s an invitation, but before he can figure it out Gus is adding, “You’re letting the bugs in, c’mon.” Miles nearly slams the door behind him. “Bathroom’s down the hall. Kitchen’s where the stove is. Bedroom’s the last door on the right. And I’m going to bed.”  
  
Miles gapes as Gus starts down the hallway. What? Really? That’s it? “We’re not even gonna cuddle?”  
  
“I’m gonna ignore that,” Gus says. He stops and turns at the bedroom door, a bright grin on his face. “And for the record, I sleep on the right side of the bed. In the nude.”  
  
Miles stares. His cheeks flush under his beard. “Wait, really?”  
  
“Guess you’ll have to find out,” Gus says cheerily just before he shuts the bedroom door behind him.  
  
Miles settles into the living room alone. He sits on the couch for a bit, then explores the kitchen when he gets restless. He stares at the scary shower in the guest bedroom, trying to figure out how the fuck to even get hot water. He counts how many steps it takes to circle the living room. And when he can’t think of anything else to do that is guaranteed not to end in his death – what if he ruins Gus’s Netflix suggestions? What if he accidentally erases his saved games? –  he decides bed is the safest option.  
  
The bedroom isn’t super scary in the dark, necessarily. He’s able to maneuver well enough, doesn’t bump his knee or knock anything over. He strips down to his boxers to the soft serenade of Gus’s steady breathing, and he feels a weird tickle in his stomach even as he shakes his head and grins. He never would’ve seen this coming. Ever. Not even as a joke.  
  
Literally married to Gus. Literally living with him for two weeks. Literally sharing his bed. What the fuck?  
  
Miles climbs under the covers. Their bare legs brush, warm and furry, and Miles jolts away, sucks in a deep breath that’s oddly shaky. He hears Gus stir, hears him hum out a warm sound. He feels Gus roll over, feels their feet brush together, and his heart starts pounding.  
  
“You woke me up,” Gus grumbles.  
  
“Sorry,” Miles whispers.  
  
“What’d you want?”  
  
His heart flips over, then takes off at a feverish pace. “I, uh...”  
  
“You want a bedtime story?” Gus asks, just enough of a rough growl in his voice that Miles can’t tell if it’s from sleep or if it’s deliberate.  
  
Miles swallows and rolls toward Gus, and this time when their legs brush he doesn’t pull away. And neither does Gus. “I just. I wanted to know...”  
  
“Yeah?” Gus asks.  
  
Miles’s eyes adjust enough to trace Gus’s face, no glasses, sparkling eyes from the hint of moonlight from the window, face looking oddly relaxed instead of annoyed. Miles inhales. “...what, uh, what’s your wifi password?”  
  
Gus’s face immediately shifts, and he’s back to disgruntled frustrated Gus. “Suck my dick, Miles,” Gus says as he rolls over.  
  
Miles stares at Gus’s back. “That’s. That’s an oddly specific password-”  
  
“Good night.”  
  
Miles sighs and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling, feeling like he somehow missed something. “Good night, Gus.”  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Miles wakes in his second unfamiliar bed in a row, but this time he’s squinting at Gus, who looks freshly showered and is coaxing a brush through his hair as he looks in the mirror hanging on his wall. Miles frowns. “You’re up early,” he says, then clears his throat.  
  
Gus looks at him in the mirror. “Fuck you, I’m ‘up early.’ Work starts in half an hour.”  
  
Miles blinks. “Excuse me?”  
  
Gus turns and points the brush at him. “I’m on time. You’re late as fuck.”  
  
It takes a moment to react, but Miles rolls over and pulls his cell phone from his discarded jeans on the floor and gapes at the screen. “Gus! What the fuck?!” He falls out of bed, graceful as always, fantastic job, Miles. “Why didn’t you wake me?”  
  
“You can’t be an adult and set your own alarm?” Gus asks. He goes into the ensuite bathroom, and Miles digs through his bag, pulls out his toothbrush and a shirt he doesn’t even look at. The second Miles tries to enter the bathroom Gus glares at him. “No way, I told you where yours is, don’t-”  
  
“Later.” Miles pushes his way to the sink and wets his toothbrush.  
  
“You’re not using my toothpa-” Gus cuts off as Miles starts brushing vigorously. “You don’t use toothpaste? That’s-”  
  
Miles glares at him. “Little less talking, please.”  
  
Gus muscles his way up to the sink beside Miles, but there’s not nearly enough room for both of them, and thus the passive aggressive elbowing begins. Miles isn’t good at being passive aggressive. No, if anything, Miles makes other people fight his battles. But that isn’t an option here. And that means he locks eyes with Gus in the mirror and gives him a hip bump worthy of a gold medal.  
  
Gus stumbles away a few steps, looking incredibly affronted. And then he tosses the brush loudly onto the bathroom counter. “I’m kicking you out.”  
  
“Are you serious?!” Miles spits out saliva and water and puts his toothbrush down. “No way, dude, it’s been less than twelve hours and-” He watches Gus take his toothbrush and put it aggressively in line with Gus’s. “Can you just leave my shit alone for two seconds?!”  
  
“I’m gonna make Burnie write you up,” Gus says as he turns and walks out.  
  
Miles stares at him in the mirror in horror before he whips his shirt off and storms into the bedroom. “Gus, that’s bullshit, c’mon!”  
  
“AND Matt!” Gus calls, already halfway down the hall.  
  
Miles manages to smear deodorant on and grab his shirt as he follows behind. “Y’know, just because you suck their dicks doesn’t mean you-”  
  
Gus spins around. “You wanna continue that train of thought and lose half a grand?” he snaps.  
  
No, Miles doesn’t. He wants to eat breakfast and go get some progress on his project at work, but instead he’s here glaring at Gus, and Gus is glaring back.  
  
No, wait, Gus is looking at Miles.  
  
Miles’s...torso?  
  
Miles glances down. Okay, yes, he’s still shirtless, but he’s not exactly ripped, so-  
  
“Just get to work halfway on time,” Gus says softly, turning to walk away again. “I’ll cover your ass today, and that’s it.”  
  
The door shuts. Miles stands in the middle of the hallway, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened, going from cold to hot to...whatever that was. Warm? Or was it super hot instead?  
  
He swears softly and pulls his shirt on. He has his dad’s hair. He needs a few minutes to sort it out with a brush, just like Gus. And maybe it’ll give him time to sort out his thoughts too.  
  
Spoiler: it doesn’t. All it does is get Miles stuck in traffic that he would’ve avoided if he’d just left his hair like the curly mess it was. It makes him sweat through his shirt as he thinks about the things he’s no doubt telling Burnie and Matt without any hesitation.  
  
When he gets to work, he nearly mopes the whole way to his desk. Plops down. Sees the chicken biscuit sitting there a few seconds too late. There’s a note scribbled in Sharpie on the paper around it: _“You owe me one. -Gus”_  
  
A few days ago, Miles would’ve been worried about what this owing might have entailed. But today all he can do is wonder about it curiously.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
The day goes easily enough. Miles makes progress on his project. He grabs lunch with Blaine and Chris. He generally gets shit done, and that’s always exciting. The day goes by in a blur, and when it comes time to leave he takes a little extra time to look around the office, see if he can find Gus, just, just to see if they’re gonna, like, if he wants to hang out or something that evening. He gets word that Gus already left for the day, so hey, that’s fine, he can just catch up with him.  
  
The weird thing is that Miles gets home – no, to Gus’s house – before Gus does. But hey, maybe Gus took a weird way home, or had to stop to pick something up, or...or whatever, okay, there’s tons of reasons.  
  
And it’s not weird to wait for him to get home before he starts thinking about dinner. Maybe it’s because Miles is a little terrified to start going through the fridge in case he eats something Gus has been saving. Gus is vicious when he’s pissed off, and Miles values his head being attached to his body rather than rolling around on the floor.  
  
So he waits. He still doesn’t know the wifi password and wasting his data doesn’t sound like a good time. Gus’s books aren’t nearly dirty enough to be interesting. There’s literally nothing to do but stare at the wall.  
  
Miles finally caves and texts Gus. _”Hey do you want me to make dinner or whatever?”_ There. That’s casual. Gives Miles something to do too.  
  
The reply is surprisingly quick. _”Getting dinner and drinks with Geoff and Griffon.”_  
  
Oh.  
  
Miles stares at the message for a few seconds. Gus didn’t even think to tell him? Really? Even when they’re ma- staying together for a few days? Miles doesn’t even know how his appliances work yet to make himself food!  
  
After a few moments he replies. _”Cool, do I need to wait up so we can talk Make Jack’s Fantasy Come True logistics? Like the date he wants us on?”_  
  
Gus reads the text. There’s a long pause. And then he replies. _”Don’t wait up. Won’t be home.”_  
  
Okay, so. That normally means...wow, no, okay, there’s no way. Literally anything is more likely than that. Maybe they’re doing an impromptu D&D game that’s gonna run so late that Gus is sleeping over. Maybe they’re discussing plans for the company that Miles isn’t privy to. Anything. Anything but…  
  
He funnels righteous indignation instead of focusing on the Thing That Is Absolutely Not Happening. He makes the most extensive, most creative, and eventually most disgusting bowl of ramen that this world has ever seen, and then he leaves the half-eaten mess in the sink.  
  
He’s pissed. Why is he pissed?  
  
There’s no clear answer. Eventually Miles drags himself to bed rather than confuse himself further by dwelling on it.  
  
He doesn’t sleep right away. The whole bed smells like Gus, and something about it has his skin vibrating. So he drifts. He daydreams. He wonders what the ceremony was like for him and Gus, and what officiator in their right mind decided it was a good idea to marry two clearly drunk dudes. Did they recite proper vows? Did they kiss?  
  
Miles is still thinking about it when he hears the front door open. He jolts. The door slams. Angry burglar?  
  
The bedroom door opens while he’s still nervously laying flat. It’s Gus’s silhouette in the moonlight, but something convinces Miles that it’s someone else, anyone else, a stranger kicking their shoes across the room, stripping down to their boxers, pulling back the sheets, and laying in what is clearly a huffy silence.  
  
Miles could let it be awkward. It’d be easy. But Miles and awkwardness don’t play all that well together, so Miles responds the most natural way he can: irreverence.  
  
“Didn’t get lucky this time?” Miles asks. He has approximately two seconds to regret it before Gus rolls over.  
  
So now Gus is spooning him. Now Gus is touching his hip. Now Miles’s skin is heating up and forcing him to acknowledge why.  
  
“Jealous?” Gus murmurs near his ear, and a shock runs straight down his spine. “Or you just wanna cuddle me all better?”  
  
Miles’s breath catches, hot and thick in his chest, and he licks his lips when his mind short-circuits. Instinct kicks in, makes him breathe a laugh and say “I mean, I dunno if I wanna be the rebound here.”  
  
Gus huffs out a laugh of his own, and when he noses lightly at the back of Miles’s neck, Miles can’t keep from curling his toes. “What about sloppy seconds?”  
  
Fuck. Miles is thinking about it again, picturing Griffon pressed between Gus and Geoff, gasping and sweating and whispering quiet encouragement. _Fuck._ He scrambles for words. “No dude who just got laid comes home that pissed.”  
  
Gus’s fingers sink into his hip, dimpling neatly. “You think so?”  
  
“Trust me, I know so.”  
  
Gus hums. “So instead you just wanna tease me about it.”  
  
Miles has been laying in a bed that smells purely of Gus for at least an hour now, has been thinking about him almost nonstop, and all of that is probably the reason why his foggy mind decides he should press back against Gus. “You’re fun to piss off,” Miles murmurs.  
  
There are a few facts Miles realizes in quick succession. One, Gus’s fingers are starting to hurt, maybe even bruise around his hip. Two, Gus isn’t pulling away. And three, Gus is absolutely hard against Miles’s ass that’s held so close to his cock.  
  
Oh. Okay.  
  
There’s a tense few seconds. Miles focuses on the solid heat that’s, yeah, absolutely right against the cleft of his ass. He waits for Gus to...to…  
  
Gus eventually laughs and rolls away. “You say that now.”  
  
Miles stays on his side, loosening the fingers he hadn’t realized he’d tensed around his pillow. “...yeah, well...”  
  
“Good comeback.”  
  
“Always,” Miles says weakly.  
  
They lay there silently. Eventually Gus crawls out of bed and disappears into the bathroom, the fan lightly running in the background and muffling every sound. He’s in there for a while. But there’s no toilet flush. Just the sink eventually running briefly before Gus returns to bed and almost immediately falls into steady sleeping breathing.  
  
And meanwhile Miles lays there for what must be hours before his own boner goes down enough that he can finally close his eyes and grab an exhausted few hours of sleep. Because life is fair and makes perfect sense literally all the time.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
The next day, Gus drops into the chair nearest Miles’s desk. “Bad news.”  
  
“Yeah?” Miles asks. He rubs his eyes. He’s been staring at the screen too long. “Let me guess, Rooster Teeth’s bankrupt.”  
  
“No one’s that lucky,” Gus says dryly, but he doesn’t smile. He keeps watching Miles intently, and Miles braces himself to hear that someone’s died, someone fucking ate too much for a bet and finally kicked the bucket. “Jack wants pictures of us on a date.”  
  
Miles stares. He blinks. “That’s it?”  
  
Gus scowls. “You’re not upset about this?”  
  
“Are you kidding? I love dates. Dates are fucking awesome. Especially dates with my dear darling husband that I don’t have to pay for.”  
  
“First of all, shut the fuck up, and second of all, we’re going dutch, whatever we do.” He leans back in his seat and folds his long, slender fingers over his belly. “I was hoping Jack would conveniently forget all of his lovely terms for the next couple of weeks, but no, his memory’s as infallible as ever, fucker.”  
  
Miles can’t help but smile. He tilts his head to the side, watches Gus be generally disgruntled, grins wider at the way his puffed out pouty cheeks make him look a bit like an angry chipmunk. He’s cute. He’s cute and Miles is utterly fucked and he’s accepted that finally. “So what’re we gonna do?”  
  
Gus flicks his eyes to Miles, frowns further. “I figure we don’t wanna be seen together.”  
  
“Why not?” Miles asks. He doesn’t mean to sound as offended as he does.  
  
“There’s fans, dipshit,” Gus snaps. “They get a picture of us taking selfies while holding hands at some romantic candlelit dinner-”  
  
“-and they’ll think it’s just guys being bros. Jesus, Gus, it’s 2016, stop the homophobia.”  
  
Gus scoffs. “Yeah. Homophobia. Right. Anyway, I really just wanna sit on my ass all night, so I’m proposing that we Netflix and Chill.”  
  
Miles immediately imagines being hip to hip with Gus on the couch, watching some romantic dude movie, stealing food from his takeout box. That shouldn’t appeal to him as much as it does. “Do I get to pick the movie?”  
  
“Are you gonna pick a chick flick?”  
  
“Absolutely.”  
  
“Then sure.”  
  
Miles surprises himself by laughing, and Gus surprises him further when he grins at him. “A lover of rom coms? Gus, you surprise me every day.”  
  
“Hey, at the very least we can MST 3,000 it,” Gus says as he stands.  
  
Miles snorts. “Like you wouldn’t immediately try to suffocate me with a pillow.”  
  
“You kidding?” Gus asks, furrowing his brow as he looks down at Miles. “You’re one of the funniest dudes in the animation department. You think I’m gonna try and shut you up?”  
  
That is...possibly the first compliment he’s ever gotten from Gus. Miles feels inexplicably warm, stares up at him silently.  
  
“Anyway, if I kill you, somehow my ass’ll end up being moved down here, so-”  
  
“Touching,” Miles drawls.  
  
Gus chuckles and reaches to shove Miles’s chair gently, like a kid who nudges someone else just to touch them. Flirting? Is Gus flirting with him? Does Gus even know how to flirt? “You like Chinese?”  
  
“I fucking love Chinese.”  
  
“Good. We’re ordering Chinese tonight. Don’t be home late.”  
  
“Yes sir,” Miles says, saluting.  
  
Gus pauses, stares at Miles intently for a moment, and Miles is pretty sure he doesn’t make up how Gus flicks his eyes over Miles’s face before he shakes his head and snorts and leaves, immediately back in Irritable Office Gus form.  
  
So Miles has a date. Huh. He turns back to the computer and clicks mindlessly through emails while wondering if maybe he should change into something nicer when he gets home.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
They don’t pick a rom com. They flip through Netflix, and when Miles points out the LGBT movies Gus immediately seizes the opportunity, picks the one with the most shirtless men on the preview image and the innuendo in the title, and they sink back into the couch with their chopsticks and their rice and their sesame chicken.  
  
It’s predictably shitty acting, only slightly better than some independent movies he’s seen. “Can you believe this?” Miles asks. He winces as the lead actor delivers yet another toneless line. Miles hadn’t realized how long he’d been in the entertainment industry, honestly, but he’s almost offended at the quality of the acting paired with the actor no doubt making more money than Miles did per shoot for Rooster Teeth.  
  
“Shit,” Gus declares. “Utter shit.” He grabs his beer with a scoff. “I’ve seen gay porn with better acting than this.”  
  
Miles chokes on his mouthful of rice. “Excuse me?”  
  
“And second of all, look at the lighting,” Gus goes on, waving vaguely at the screen. “Whoever lit this doesn’t know how to light the bare side of an ass-”  
  
“You’ve watched gay porn?” Miles presses. He’s not willing to let this go.  
  
Gus squints at him. “Who do you think I am, dude?” He snorts. “I’ve had friends that fucking acted in gay porn.”  
  
“Jack?” Miles asks incredulously.  
  
“That was _straight_ porn,” Gus corrects.  
  
“Who the fuck do you know that was in a gay porn?!”  
  
“Your daddy,” Gus snaps. “None of your business.”  
  
Miles scoffs. “You’re the one that brought it up. Was it you? Were you in a gay porn?”  
  
“Hell no. You can’t pay me enough to have some director tell me how to give it to somebody up the ass. Motherfucker wouldn’t know what he’s doing.”  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Miles says. They silently watch the movie for a bit. “I can one-up you.”  
  
“Is this a competition now?” Gus teases. They lock eyes. “Okay, what are you even one-upping?”  
  
“The gay competition.”  
  
“The Gay Competition.” Gus says it very crisply, very judgmentally, but his eyes are sparkling behind his glasses. “What is that, how gay we can be?”  
  
“Yes,” Miles says seriously.  
  
“When did that competition even start?”  
  
“Probably around the time you shoved your finger up my ass on camera,” Miles says, lips quirking.  
  
Gus considers him. “Good point. All right, have at it,” he says, waving. “Tell me how you’re apparently the gayest straight man around.”  
  
Miles feels his cheeks start coloring under his beard. Why is he doing this again? Probably because he loves escalation, let’s be real, and hell, they’re not gonna watch this movie anyway, fuck it. “I sent dick pics to a dude,” Miles says.  
  
“Jon,” Gus adds. “The whole world knows that, dude, that’s not exactly a secret.”  
  
“I’m not done! Jon sent one back-”  
  
“He sent you multiple dicks, if I remember the story right.” Why the hell does Gus sound smug? He drinks his beer, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Is that all?”  
  
Is he really escalating further? Really? Of course he is. Gus looks too proud, the know-it-all, too smug, too fucking attractive, and Miles opens his mouth before he can think through it. “I blew him.”  
  
Silence. Dead silence. Condensation drips from the can onto Gus’s shorts. “You did what?”  
  
“I blew Jon. Like, a little while later. We were hanging out and playing Rock Band and things, like, they, y’know how jokes escalate, and you know me and Jon, and so, yeah, I. I just sort of accidentally blew him-”  
  
“’Accidentally,’ my ass,” Gus says with a laugh. “You don’t like trip and fall on someone’s boner and catch it in your mouth, Miles, that’s not something you can just conveniently explain away.”  
  
“Well, it was! It was an accident!” Miles asserts. Easier to say that than to confess to the heat that had been in his belly when he first pumped his hand over Jon’s dick, the way his heart had pounded when he tasted the first pearl of precum on its head, how he nearly came in his pants just listening to Jon’s low and musical moans. “It was an accident, but it means I win, so whatever. You’re not telling a soul about that, by the way.”  
  
“No, yeah, of course,” Gus says dryly.  
  
“Seriously,” Miles says. He moves so he can hold Gus’s eyes, can show him just how fucking sincere he was. “You know the rules, Gus.” If someone says no cameras, then there’s no cameras. Similarly, if someone says never repeating something, then you never repeat it. Ever. Especially on camera.  
  
Gus stares at Miles for a moment, and his eyes seem to soften just like his frown. “Yeah, I know the rules. No problem.”  
  
Miles exhales sharply. He sits back and stares at the movie. But he feels restless, unsatisfied, like there’s a confrontation to be had here, and so he asks “Anyway, when was the last time you heard me say I was straight?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“You called me the gayest straight man,” Miles says. He refuses to look at him. “Just wondering what made you think I’m straight.”  
  
Silence. “So you’re not?”  
  
“Is that so hard to believe?” Miles asks. “Things, y’know, things change sometimes, shit happens, you ask questions-”  
  
“And you learn shit you didn’t really think about.”  
  
They’re quiet again. Miles risks glancing over, sees Gus tracing his finger over his beer can. “Yeah.”  
  
Gus chews on his bottom lip for a few seconds before he chuckles. “I can beat you.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“In the Gay Competition.”  
  
Miles is quiet, wrinkling his brow. “No you can’t.”  
  
“I totally can.”  
  
“Do it.”  
  
Gus wiggles back into the corner of the couch, looking straight at Miles. “I fucked a guy.”  
  
Miles feels his heart take off like an Olympic sprinter. “You what?”  
  
“I did. I fucked a guy. Also fucked his wife, but that’s not important right now.”  
  
“Gus!” Miles doesn’t mean for his voice to squeak, but hell, we can’t have everything, can we? “You fucking did what? No you didn’t!”  
  
“I so did.” Gus grins at him. “I’m not gonna say there’s pictures to prove it or anything, but-”  
  
“When?!”  
  
Gus squints up at the ceiling in thought. “...eleven years ago, I think?”  
  
Numbers and people fly through his mind. “Please tell me it wasn’t a member of Rooster Teeth.”  
  
Gus grins wider, opting to take a drink of his beer again.  
  
“You fucked Geoff.”  
  
“You’re not allowed to say that to anyone ever.”  
  
“I can’t believe you fucked Geoff! And Griffon?! Wait, hold on, how the fuck?”  
  
Gus tilts his head to the side, making a show of thinking again. “I mean, they were, listen, Geoff had just gotten out of a shit marriage, he and Griffon were already planning their wedding, and they had this funny idea that, y’know, if they fucked people before they got married, if they got it all out ahead of time, then they’d be pretty settled just for each other afterward.”  
  
“So they fucked you?!”  
  
“I fucked them,” Gus corrects. He looks pleased as punch.  
  
Miles gapes at him. “I cannot fucking believe that.”  
  
“Hey, not my fault if you ignore the facts.”  
  
“Jesus,” Miles says again. “Wait, that means you’re. Not straight either?”  
  
“On a scale of one to ten, I am arguably gayer than you,” Gus says with enthusiastic dimples.  
  
“Bi-er.”  
  
“What the fuck does that even mean?”  
  
“Never mind that,” Miles snaps. “I’m still processing the fact that you had an orgy with the hottest person alive and also Geoff.”  
  
“Threesome,” Gus corrects.  
  
“Whatever.” Miles drops his head back and stares at the ceiling, processing at the speed of the earliest computer. Sure, he’d imagined it, but he’d imagined Griffon being the center of attention, Gus and Geoff not even touching each other. Fuck, what a thing to find out. “How’d you even manage it, though? Like, how do you have that conversation in the first place?”  
  
“Easy. You look somebody in the eye and ask if they wanna fuck.”  
  
“You didn’t,” Miles says, looking at him in shock.  
  
Gus shrugs. “I don’t like wasting time.”  
  
“And it didn’t work when you went for drinks with them?”  
  
Gus finally looks a little less pleased, looks more pinched but resigned. “They’re a lovely happy monogamous couple now,” he says dryly. “No time for booty calls anymore.”  
  
Miles forces himself to consider his words before he says them this time, tastes them on his tongue before he even opens his mouth. “So what you’re saying is you don’t actually have someone you can just casually sleep with anymore?”  
  
“Don’t remind me,” Gus mutters. He looks at Miles. “I will literally kick your ass.”  
  
Miles stares. He knows what he wants to say, but. But.  
  
“Why the fuck are you looking at me like that?” Gus asks, wrinkling his bushy eyebrows.  
  
Miles breathes a laugh. He can’t believe he’s about to say this. “...do you wanna fuck?”  
  
The beer can Gus is holding crinkles. Gus’s eyes widen. “Run that by me again?”  
  
“Fucking. You. Me. D’you wanna do it?”  
  
“I...” Gus leans over to set his beer can down, where there’s now visible marks where his fingers squeezed so tightly. “Dude. What the fuck?”  
  
That’s not quite the reception Miles was looking for. He feels kicked in the stomach, but he keeps rolling with the joke just like he should. “I-I mean, y’know, you said you just look at someone and ask that and then you get laid, so figured I’d, I’d give it a try, and-”  
  
“You don’t mean it, though,” Gus says leadingly.  
  
Miles tries to figure out what the right answer is here. “...uh...”  
  
“Like...if you’re gonna ask anybody that, you’d ask Jon, right?”  
  
“Jon isn’t exactly in the room right now, Gus,” Miles reminds him.  
  
“So if he was, you’d ask him instead, right?”  
  
“This isn’t about Jon!” Miles leans forward an inch, watches Gus sit back a little more in response. “I’m asking you because I wanna fuck _you!_ ”  
  
“Jesus,” Gus says. It sounds like a prayer, like a request for protection, maybe, and Miles tries to figure out how he fucked up so quickly. Seriously, how does a dude ruin shit as easily as Miles does? Is it a talent? A gift? Was he born with it or was it Maybelline? Was it- “Are you sure?” Gus asks, interrupting his panicked thoughts.  
  
Miles wrinkles his brow. “I mean...why, uh, why are you asking?”   
  
There’s a long pause before Gus leans forward too, dropping his voice to a murmur. “Dude. Miles. I literally sexually harassed you live and on camera.”  
  
Fuck yes, he did. Miles remembers it all, remembers how his face hurt at the end of it from all the smiling and laughing, remembers making game plans for when they would draw the line, when they would have to drag Gus fully off camera for his own safety, that Miles hadn’t even thought of himself, had thought of everyone else instead. “I. Yeah, you did, but. I mean, I forgave you for that forever ago.”  
  
Gus frowns. “I never apologized to you, though.”  
  
“You were embarrassed, dude, I get it. I could’ve told you to stop,” Miles points out. “You were drunk, I was buzzed, we had literally dozens of people around us that were making sure nothing, y’know, like, nothing happened we didn’t want, they-” Miles cuts off when Gus reaches forward.  
  
When Gus. Gus holds his hand. Okay, that’s. Miles feels a jitter of nerves in his body, feels heat blossom under Gus’s fingertips.  
  
Gus holds his eyes very intently. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Miles stares at him. His chest swells with pressure. “That’s really unfair,” Miles murmurs. “I just wanna fuck you twice as much now.”  
  
Gus bursts into a laugh, looks down at the couch and shakes his head. “That is a fucking relief, because I’ve wanted to fuck you literally for years now.”  
  
“Well, we’re on the same page,” Miles says, “so get to it.”  
  
Miles feels dizzy and adrenalized as Gus looks up at him with sparkling, mischievous eyes. Gus moves his hand to Miles’s thigh, squeezes it through his jeans. “How long have you been trying to fuck me?”  
  
Miles swallows. “I, okay, listen, to be fair, I didn’t realize I wanted to until like a couple of days ago, but-”  
  
“Oh, there’s a but?”  
  
“-but Kerry, like, he pointed out how weird it is that I kept fixating on, like, how you and me got weird after Extra Life, and how I didn’t just try to fix it right away, and like, you know, how-”  
  
“Are you saying you were pouting because I stopped talking to you?” Gus asks with a broad grin.  
  
“Shut up,” Miles says, pointing at him. “I did not say that.”  
  
“You implied it.”  
  
“I. Yes, okay, yes, I was pouting.”  
  
Gus laughs again. “I tried to give you space because I thought you fucking hated me.”  
  
“When did I even once act like I hated you?!” Miles asks incredulously.  
  
“I mean, you never _act_ like you hate anybody. That’s the weird thing about you. You act like you get along with anyone that basically breathes around you, so that made it hard to figure out, but-”  
  
“It made it hard to figure out because I never hated you!” Miles leans forward and cups Gus’s face between his hands, intent and playfully serious. “You’re a beautiful motherfucker and I wanna see your dick.”  
  
Gus rolls his eyes, but Miles can’t be fooled, not when Gus looks like his face is going to split in two with how hard he’s grinning. “You’re lucky I don’t go for romance,” Gus drawls. He spreads his legs a bit and goes straight for his zipper, and yep, holy fuck, there’s a cock that’s gonna be coming out of that, and Miles hasn’t seen a lot of cocks face to face, but there’s a first time for everything, and he rests his hands on Gus’s shoulders while craning his neck downward to see. “Don’t get too excited,” Gus teases.  
  
“Fuck you, I’ll get excited if I want to.”  
  
Gus snorts as he pushes down his jeans and his boxers just enough that. That there’s a.  
  
“Are you kidding me?” Miles asks.  
  
“What?” Gus asks back, sounding way too casual.  
  
Miles points. “That’s fucking ridiculous! You’re not even hard! How are you that...please tell me you’re a shower, not a grower, because that’s just gonna make me feel insecure.”  
  
Gus reaches down and wraps his hand around his fucking giant flaccid cock, starts teasing at it. “Well, be prepared to get insecure, then,” Gus says way too cheerfully.  
  
Only one thought occurs to Miles and he glances up again. “We’re really doing this?”  
  
Gus helpfully elevates his cock, thumbing over the head. “What?”  
  
“You really want me? For real?”  
  
Gus wrinkles his brow, then flicks his eyes to Miles’s lips. “Yeah. I really want you. For real. Want a kiss to prove it?”  
  
“Yeah, man,” Miles says with a little smile as he leans in.  
  
Miles isn’t content with one kiss, and he probably should’ve expected that. Gus has a good mouth, okay? The scratch of his stubble is a little weird when Miles turns his head to get a better angle, but. But it’s not. Bad. It’s good. It’s fantastic. And pairing it with the realization that he can feel the way Gus curves his hand to keep teasing at himself, that makes a little explosion swell in his gut, quick and sudden just like the way Miles sucks in a sharp breath and deepens the kiss.  
  
There is an issue, though, and it’s that Miles realizes he’s the one doing most of the work in this kiss. He pulls back with a grunt a few seconds later, frowning. “Okay, so why am I still feeling like you don’t really want this?” he asks.  
  
Gus opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “I don’t wanna do anything you’re not comfortable with, like, I don’t wanna push or take any control or-”  
  
“Gus, Gus,” Miles says, taking his face again. “Look at me. Look at my mouth. Listen to what my mouth says. I. Will. Tell. You. To. Stop. Okay?” He thumbs over Gus’s cheeks, feeling oddly intent and tender. “I get that you’re freaked out about what happened at Extra Life, I really do, but this isn’t then, this is now, and we’re both sober, and I want you to do whatever you want, and if it’s too much I’ll tell you to stop. Promise.”  
  
“You are so long-winded,” Gus says, but he’s still looking at Miles’s mouth, a spark in his eyes, and this time Gus doesn’t hesitate to lean forward and catch him in another kiss that’s so focused that Miles nearly fistpumps.  
  
Okay, so Gus was holding back more than Miles thought he was, that’s, that’s fine, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just that Gus is angling them now so that Miles is pressed against the back of the couch, and Miles instinctively grabs for Gus’s shirt just to get a little leverage here, because dude, you’re gonna knock me over the couch if you keep trying this. He’s not opposed to a little action on the floor, but the bruises? Jury’s still out on that one, okay?  
  
It’s actually kind of funny, because Miles feels himself resisting the push into submission, which is what Gus is clearly expecting from him. Are they both dominating guys? Are they both tops? Oh God, Miles is gonna have to be the bottom, isn’t he? Does Gus even have lube? Miles can feel his buttcheeks clenching in anticipation.  
  
Miles breaks the kiss when he feels Gus wrap his other hand around the back of Miles’s neck. “Okay, hold on, hold on-” When Gus tries to pull back like he’s burned himself, Miles tugs him back by the shirt. “No, Jesus, don’t go anywhere, just, uh...” Miles licks his lips. Have they always been that swollen? Shit. “I think we need to, uh, to figure out where we’re going here? Like, what we want?”  
  
Gus slowly nods. “You said you wanted to fuck.”  
  
“Yeah, well!” Miles’s voice squeaks higher than it ever has before. “Maybe just realized that involves some stretching and some lubing and some prepping-” He makes obscure hand gestures to demonstrate. “-and maybe just realized I have no fucking clue how any of that works, so-”  
  
“I mean, I can show you,” Gus says with a little laugh. “It’s not the first time, and it’s all pretty simple, so-”  
  
“I don’t think I wanna bottom,” Miles says. He winces.  
  
Gus blinks a few times. “Okay?”  
  
“That ruins everything, doesn’t it?”  
  
“No…?” Gus wrinkles his brow. “I mean, unless you have some weird discharge coming out of your dick, I really don’t think it-”  
  
“Whoa, whoa, wait, hold on, you’d let _me_ fuck _you?_ ”  
  
Gus pauses. “Am I supposed to put up more of a fight before I say yes?”  
  
So if Miles wasn’t hard before, he’s absolutely hard now, fuck, like, literally about to pass out from sudden blood flow. “Oh my God,” he sings out, tipping his head back, looking up to see if angels are gathering to sing the Hallelujah chorus.  
  
“Hey, hey,” Gus says, snapping in front of Miles’s eyes. “Come back.”  
  
“Yep! Yep, sorry, just a little bit distracted.”  
  
“Is that where you wanna go? You fuck me?” Gus asks, reaching to tip Miles’s head back down so their eyes lock again. “That’s doable, we just might, you know, wanna go to the bed.”  
  
Miles stares at Gus, taking in his flushed cheeks, his soft hair, his serious eyes, and he thinks. He considers. Fucking Gus will probably be a really awkward experience, not because Miles is a virgin or anything but because he’s never stuck his cock inside an ass before, and there’s probably gonna be lube everywhere, and it’ll be just gross and sticky afterward, so maybe. Maybe… “...maybe...not?”  
  
Gus stares back. “Is that a question?”  
  
“Maybe not, I don’t know, I’m. Maybe we can do something less complicated now?” Miles pauses. “That is, like, if this is gonna happen again, you know, we could always try, like-”  
  
“Yes, I want this to happen again,” Gus interrupts. He’s figured out the only way to get Miles to shut up, then.  
  
“Okay!” Miles rubs his hands together. “Okay. Then we can just touch each other and I can blow you and it’ll all be great.”  
  
Gus snorts.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re gonna blow me?” Gus asks with a grin.  
  
Miles scowls at him. “I’ve blown a guy before! I can do it!”  
  
Gus sits back a little more. “Are you really sure?”  
  
“Listen, if I can blow Jon, then I can blow-” Miles stutters to a halt as he looks down, tips his head, and points at the newly grown erection. “Okay, so that’s a work in progress, never mind.”  
  
“Uh-huh.” Gus grins at him and cups Miles’s cheek, pulling him in for another sloppy kiss. “I have faith in your ability to learn,” he murmurs against his mouth.  
  
“I can conquer anything,” Miles murmurs right back before he sucks Gus’s bottom lip into his mouth, gives it a little nibble that makes Gus hum in appreciation. “Move so I can blow you, please.”  
  
“I’m comfy right here,” Gus teases, leaning in, pressing his full weight against Miles.  
  
“You’re gonna get precum on my shirt,” Miles whispers.  
  
“What a fucking loss,” Gus whispers back.  
  
As they kiss, Miles can feel Gus grinding against his front, and Miles hums before he manages to pull his shirt up to his armpits so that he can feel Gus’s hot, smooth skin against his own. He can’t imagine it’d be comfortable to rub that thing on his shirt anyway, Jesus, there’s so fucking much surface area to get chafed. He feels Gus’s hands slip between them, and Miles breaks the kiss with a gasp and a sharp moan when Gus cups him through his jeans.  
  
“What’s this?” Gus teases.  
  
“A surprise?” Miles attempts to tease back, though he thinks his voice is a little too strangled to get the full effect across.  
  
“I hate surprises.” Gus squeezes and Miles sees little pinpricks at the edge of his vision, swelling like fireworks as Miles tips his head back and bites his bottom lip. “Can I open it?”  
  
“Gus,” Miles chokes, “if you don’t get my dick out in ten seconds, I’m gonna cry.”  
  
Gus pauses. “What if I like that?”  
  
“Oh, you kinky motherfucker,” Miles says with a little laugh.  
  
“Guilty.” But Gus still works at Miles’s belt, his button, his zipper, and Miles whines when a rush of cool air hits his cock when Gus peels his jeans and boxers down. “You really feel insecure?” Gus asks.  
  
It takes Miles a second to remember what he’s referring to, but then he’s feeling Gus’s cock against his thigh, feeling the couch shifting, feeling how much easier it is to breathe without Gus pinning him to the back of the couch. “I think Ron Jeremy would be insecure around you, dude.”  
  
“Don’t be,” Gus says as he sinks to his knees and looks up at Miles with surprisingly long eyelashes. “Don’t be insecure.”  
  
Miles barks a laugh. He rubs at his eyes because it’s either that or take in how Gus looks so perfectly and prettily perched between his legs. “Says the dude with an oatmeal can for a dick.”  
  
Gus takes him in hand and Miles sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. “Hey,” Gus says.  
  
Miles focuses on not gasping.  
  
“Look at me.”  
  
Miles looks down not because he’s obeying, thank you, but because he’s just...just curious. What he sees is Gus’s mouth wide open, and not even in an appealing way. “Uh?”  
  
“What do you see?” Gus asks.  
  
Miles squints, tries to see if there’s an exciting tongue ring or something. “...a bunch of gross spit?”  
  
Gus smacks Miles on the thigh. “My mouth is watering, fucker.”  
  
“Oh,” Miles says, then, realizing what Gus means, follows it with a more emphatic “Oh!”  
  
Gus squeezes Miles’s cock for emphasis, makes Miles swear when he drags his hand up the shaft. “This is a good dick,” Gus says very seriously. “And I’m gonna suck your soul out through it.”  
  
Miles twitches in Gus’s hand, and he swallows sharply. “That, it, it’s only right, y’know. For a husband to do that every once and a while.”  
  
“Shut up,” Gus says as he leans down.  
  
“Y-yes sir,” Miles stammers.  
  
The blowjob’s a goddamn religious experience from the second Gus touches his tongue to Miles’s shaft. It’s all reds and oranges and weird bursts of gold right at the edge of his vision, nails tickling up his spine, pleasant warm water drowning him and taking him to goddamn Heaven or Valhalla or Whatever-The-Fuck, he doesn’t even know.  
  
How many cocks has Gus fucking sucked before? Huh?! He doesn’t even flinch at swallowing Miles down, doesn’t hesitate to pull back off just as quickly to keep the most agonizing hot and cold tease that Miles has ever experienced going, again and again and again.  
  
Miles really shouldn’t like it as much as he does, but hell, he already knows he’s gonna die by Gus’s beautiful mouth now, he might as well enjoy it all the way to the cemetery.  
  
“Gus,” he whispers, clawing at the couch. “Holy shit, Gus.”  
  
“Mmm? Gus sounds so casual, like he isn’t taking Miles down his throat again, like he’s just fucking buying groceries.  
  
“You’re just, you’re so, you’re incredible, your mouth’s amazing, you just-” Miles swears he can feel Gus grin around his cock, can almost feel his shoulders shaking, and Miles smacks the couch with his palm. “Goddammit, Gus, you can at least pretend you’re not so smug about your perfect tongue, asshole.”  
  
Gus hums in amusement. Dick.  
  
Speaking of dicks, the one that happens to belong to Miles is still down Gus’s throat, and Gus is getting absolutely nothing out of it, and Miles can sort of remember that in between the silky graze of pleasure over his brain. “Hey. Hey. Hey.”  
  
Gus pulls off and works with his hand for a moment. “What?” he asks a little impatiently.  
  
“How am I supposed to get you off if- _Gus._ ” It’s not a very masculine moan, but Miles isn’t sure how else to respond when Gus just sucked one of his balls into his mouth. “Fuck-”  
  
“I can take care of it myself,” Gus says as he jacks Miles off with his slender, perfect hands, fuck. There’s the sound of a belt loosening, and as Gus wraps his mouth to suck at the head of Miles’s cock again Miles feels the tremor of a groan roll down his shaft.  
  
“A-are you, are you touching yourself?” Miles asks in an almost accusing tone.  
  
Gus’s moan is all the reply that Miles needs.  
  
Gus is getting off to this, getting off to blowing Miles, he’s, he’s- “Gus, I-I’m-”  
  
There’s a hum just before it’s cut off by Miles’s dick slipping down Gus’s throat, and Miles presses both hands to his face and tries not to scream as he comes.  
  
Fighting through the afterglow is the fucking worst thing Miles has ever done, but it’s helped in part by Gus making some spectacular sound while he’s still tonguing lightly at Miles’s cock, as if there’s anything to even clean off of it, and Miles looks down, realizes that Gus is cupping his hand around his own dick in a very distinct way. “...d-did you just come?” Miles asks.  
  
Gus rests his temple on Miles’s thigh, looks up at him with hazy eyes. “Shut up.”  
  
“You...” Miles laughs and runs a hand through his sweaty hair. “You lasted like three seconds, dude.”  
  
“I had a good show, fucking sue me!” Gus snaps. He slaps Miles in the stomach so fast that Miles doesn’t realized it’s with Gus’s jizz-covered hand until it’s too late.  
  
“DUDE,” Miles shrieks, dancing away from him, and he’s not sure how he ends up on the floor with a giant jizzy handprint on his skin, but Gus is laughing his ass off. “Gus!”  
  
“You deserved that,” Gus says with a wide grin. “D’you know how long I had that handprint on my stomach after Extra Life?”  
  
“Fuck you,” Miles says.  
  
Gus snorts and flops down on his side next to Miles, looking at him. “Maybe later,” he says. It’s tentative, and Miles turns his head to meet his eyes, to watch Gus hold his gaze for a few seconds before he looks away and clears his throat.  
  
“Maybe,” Miles says just as quietly with a little smile. And since Gus is still avoiding his eyes, Miles leans in and kisses him just at the corner of his mouth, watches Gus try to hide his smile too.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“You kick him out yet?” Jack asks the next day when Miles and Gus come into the office together, completely and rudely interrupting their conversation they were having in the car on the way over.  
  
Gus is fast to reply. “Nah, we fucked last night.”  
  
“Totally,” Miles says just as quickly.  
  
Jack bursts out laughing. “Bullshit.”  
  
“No, really,” Gus says, “I’d show you the condom but we didn’t use one.”  
  
“He likes it raw,” Miles says with a leer, reaching to grab Gus’s ass and squeeze it, and he darts away when Gus reaches out to slap at him.  
  
“That is fucking disgusting. And hilarious.” Jack chuckles again. “Whatever. Tell me when the divorce is finalized so I can get my money.”  
  
“He still doesn’t think we’re gonna make it,” Miles says to Gus, offended.  
  
Gus snaps, points vaguely. “Here, show him the picture last night, from the date.”  
  
Jack is quiet for a moment as Miles goes for his phone. “Wait, you guys actually did the date thing? Last night? Seriously?”  
  
“Oh Jackatillo,” Miles says with a sigh, going to drape his arm over Jack’s shoulder as he scrolls through his pictures. “Oh ye of little faith. Here.”  
  
Jack frowns, then squints at the screen. “Why aren’t you wearing any pants?”  
  
“Already told you,” Miles says, leaning closer to whisper. “Y’know, I should really thank you for the fuckathon, it was definitely-”  
  
“Is that Gus’s dick?!” Jack shouts.  
  
“Yeah, I didn’t believe it either, but-”  
  
“Gross, dude!” Jack shoves Miles away. “I, no, dude, too, too much, I don’t wanna hear it.”  
  
Gus drapes his arm around Miles’s waist, tipping his head onto his shoulder. “He played beautiful romantic music, and in that moment I swear we were one-”  
  
“Don’t wanna hear it!” Jack puts his fingers in his ears and goes down the hall, double time, singing loudly to himself.  
  
Gus and Miles lean into each other as they laugh, as they make their way down the hallway too. They part ways at the fork in the hall, and Miles holds out his fist. “We still on for that divorce next week?”  
  
“Hell yeah,” Gus says, bumping their fists together. “Money like that? You kidding me?”  
  
Gus starts to turn away, but Miles steps forward, grabs him by the face, presses a kiss to his cheek. “Muah!” He gives one last slap on Gus’s ass before he darts away. “Later, hubby!”  
  
“I’m gonna fucking murder you!” Gus calls after him.  
  
“Love you too!”


End file.
